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Will The Banksters And The Corpocracy Eventually Own It All?
Some of these numbers you probably already know, some are horrific. Michael sets out the problem, and a solution (throw out the tax code and start over), but what else is needed? - Ilene
Will The Banksters And The Corpocracy Eventually Own It All? 29 Statistics About Extreme Income Inequality In America That Will Blow Your Mind
Courtesy of Michael Snyder at Economic Collapse
Today, average Americans have less power relative to the monolithic corporate and governmental institutions that dominate our society than at any other point in U.S. history. Sadly, this is not what our founding fathers ever envisioned. Our founding fathers established a government "of the people, by the people, for the people", but what we have today is very far from that ideal. In America today, wealth and power are very highly concentrated, and if you have neither wealth nor power than most of our politicians really do not have any interest in you.
Over the past several decades, those with huge amounts of money and power have been busy rigging the game so that the rest of the money and power slowly but surely funnels into their hands. If current trends continue, the banksters and the corpocracy will eventually own it all. Below you will find 29 statistics about extreme income inequality in America. Sadly, most of these statistics will be out of date in a year or two because wealth and power will be much more concentrated by that time.
If you are a "Kool-Aid drinking Democrat" you are going to be really upset by this article. If you are a "Kool-Aid drinking Republican" you are going to be really upset by this article.
Most Republicans have been brainwashed into believing that "capitalism" means cheerleading while the big corporations hoover up money and power.
Most Democrats have no trouble with big corporations either because most establishment Democrats have been brainwashed into believing that large concentrations of power (whether governmental or corporate) are generally good. Most Democrats just wish that big corporations were a little less greedy and were a little more "socially responsible".
Today, the big banks, the big corporations and the federal government are all in bed with one another and it is average Americans that always lose out.
Our founding fathers tried to warn us about large concentrations of power. They attempted to establish a very limited central government, they wanted to keep us free from the tyranny of the big banks and they were very suspicious of large corporations.
In a 2010 article, Rick Ungar noted that corporations were very seriously restricted in the early days of America....
After the nation’s founding, corporations were, as they are today, the result of charters granted by the state. However, unlike today, they were limited in how long they were permitted to exist (typically 20 or 30 years), only permitted to deal in one commodity, they could not own shares in other corporations, and their property holdings were expressly limited to what they needed to accomplish their corporate business goals.
My how things have changed.
"Capitalism" is supposed to be about the empowerment of individuals and families and small businesses.
Instead, today "capitalism" has come to mean something completely different. Today, the biggest, meanest concentrations of wealth devour everyone else with a big assist from the government.
At this point, average Americans mean next to nothing in the political process. This point was eloquently made in a recent column by Robert Reich....
The unemployed are politically invisible. They don’t make major campaign donations. They don’t lobby Congress. There’s no National Association of Unemployed People.
Their ranks are filled with women who had been public employees, single mothers, minorities, young people trying to enter the labor force, and middle-aged men who have been out of work for longer than six months. You couldn’t find a collection of people with less political clout.
I would not normally quote Robert Reich, but he made a good point. If you don't have an army of lobbyists or any money to give to them then most of our politicians don't really care what you think or how much you are hurting.
Just think about the amount of power and money that Exxon Mobil or Wal-Mart has compared to the amount of power and money that an average American has.
Our society has veered very far from the egalitarian ideal that our founding fathers once hoped for.
The corporate giants are so powerful that it is next to impossible for small businesses to directly compete with them.
Many banks and corporations have become so big that the world literally cannot afford for them to fail.
For example, three U.S. corporations control approximately 90% of the world’s grain trade.
So what happens if those three corporations collapse? That is something to think about.
But of course average Americans are never "too big to fail". The big banks begged and begged for bailouts, but if you are late on your debt payments they may chuck you into prison.
Also, when wealth and power are so highly concentrated, economic rewards flow only to a few. Corporatism (as opposed to true capitalism) produces a handful of winners and a whole lot of losers.
As I have written about previously, the middle class is being destroyed. If current trends are allowed to continue long enough we eventually won't have much of a middle class left at all.
The following are 29 statistics about extreme income inequality in America that will blow your mind....
#1 In the United States today, the richest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.
#2 The wealthiest 1% of all Americans now own more than a third of all the wealth in the United States.
#3 The wealthiest 1% of all Americans own over 50% of all the stocks and bonds.
#4 The poorest 50% of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.
#5 According to a joint House and Senate report entitled "Income Inequality and the Great Recession", the top one percent of income earners in the United States brought in a total of 10.0 percent of all income income in 1980, but by the time 2008 had rolled around that figure had skyrocketed to 21.0 percent.
#6 Between 1979 and and 2007, the average household income of the top 1% of all Americans soared from $346,600 to $1.3 million. During that same time period the average household income for middle class Americans increased only slightly.
#7 According to Harvard Magazine, 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
#8 More than 3 billion people, close to half the world's population, live on less than 2 dollar a day.
#9 According to a new report from the AFL-CIO, the average CEO made 343 times more money than the average American did last year.
#10 The number of "low income jobs" in the U.S. has risen steadily over the past 30 years and they now account for 41 percent of all jobs in the United States.
#11 Since 1979, real median weekly earnings for high school dropouts has declined by 22 percent.
#12 During this economic downturn, employee compensation in the United States has been the lowest that it has been relative to gross domestic product in over 50 years.
#13 Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.
#14 Since the year 2000, we have lost 10% of our middle class jobs. In the year 2000 there were about 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs. Meanwhile, our population has gotten significantly larger.
#15 Ten years ago, the United States was ranked number one in average wealth per adult. In 2010, the United States fell to seventh.
#16 According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States were living below the poverty line in 2010. In the UK and in France that figure is well under 10 percent.
#17 Today, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.
#18 It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.
#19 According to Moody's Analytics, the wealthiest 5% of households in the United States now account for approximately 37% of all consumer spending.
#20 The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.
#21 The U.S. poverty rate is now the third worst among the developed nations tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
#22 Approximately half of all American workers make $25,000 a year or less.
#23 The wealthiest 1% of the earth's population controls 39% of the wealth.
#24 It is estimated that over 80 percent of the world's population lives in countries where the income gap between the rich and the poor is widening.
#25 One year after the recent financial collapse the top 25 hedge fund managers earned a total of approximately $25 billion. That breaks down to an average of $1 billion each.
#26 Bill Gates has a net worth of somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 billion dollars. That means that there are approximately 140 different nations that have a yearly GDP which is smaller than the amount of money Bill Gates has.
#27 It is estimated that the entire continent of Africa owns approximately 1 percent of the total wealth of the world.
#28 The top 0.01% of Americans make an average of $27,342,212. The bottom 90% make an average of $31,244.
#29 58 percent of the members of Congress are millionaires while only about 1 percent of the general population is made up of millionaires.
So what is the solution?
Well, our liberal friends insist that the solution to all of this inequality is to tax the rich and to distribute the wealth to the poor.
Well, there are three major problems with that.
Number one, when you raise taxes too high you eliminate the incentive to work hard.
Number two, when you make it too easy to depend on government handouts you create an underclass of economic parasites.
Number three, the big corporations and the ultra-wealthy have become masters at avoiding taxation no matter what the rates are.
Before you tax the rich too much, you might want to consider the consequences of doing so.
Why should someone bust his or her rear end to run a business and make a lot of money if the government is just going to come along and take over half of all the money that is made?
Personally, if I ever get into a tax bracket where over half the money I make goes to the government then I simply will not work nearly as hard at that point.
But if that starts happening on a large scale, then you have a significant loss of economic activity which hurts the economy overall.
Already, the top 20 percent of all income earners in the United States payapproximately 86 percent of all federal income taxes.
When the government "steals from the rich" and "gives to the poor", that also tends to create a large group of people that decides that it is easier to take from the government than it is to work for a living.
In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7% of all income. Today, government transfer payments account for 18.4% of all income.
At this point, U.S. households are now receiving more income from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.
That is not even close to sustainable, but nobody wants to give up their "government benefits".
Today, 59 percent of all Americans receive money from the federal government in one form or another.
Yes, there will always be those that cannot help themselves and we should always have a "safety net".
But when you look around it doesn't take a genius to figure out that things have gotten completely and totally out of control.
Right now, an all-time record 44 million Americans are on food stamps.
Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.
The U.S. government is even handing out billions of dollars to homeowners that are delinquent on their mortgages.
This is not a formula for long-term economic success.
When people get addicted to government checks they never want to stop.
But this is not what the poor need.
What the poor need are good jobs that pay good wages. Unfortunately, we keep shipping millions of those jobs overseas. So now the Chinese economy is thriving and our formerly great manufacturing cities are turning into hellholes.
Handouts do not give people hope, dignity and a future, but jobs can.
Also, as I have written about before, the big corporations and the ultra-wealthy have become masters at avoiding taxes. There is a reason why approximately a third of all the wealth in the world is held in "offshore" tax havens.
What U.S. corporations are able to get away with is absolutely amazing.
The following figures come directly out of a report by Citizens for Tax Justice. These are combined figures for the tax years 2008, 2009 and 2010.
During those three years, all of the corporations below made a lot of money. Yet all of them paid net taxes that were below zero for those three years combined.
How is that possible? Well, it turns out that instead of paying in taxes to the federal government, they were actually getting money back.
So for these corporations, their rate of taxation was actually below zero.
If you have not seen these before, you are going to have a hard time believing some of these statistics.....
*Honeywell*
Profits: $4.9 billion
Taxes: -$34 million
*Fed Ex*
Profits: $3 billion
Taxes: -$23 million
*Wells Fargo*
Profits: $49.37 billion
Taxes: -$681 million
*Boeing*
Profits: $9.7 billion
Taxes: -$178 million
*Verizon*
Profits: $32.5 billion
Taxes: -$951 million
*Dupont*
Profits: $2.1 billion
Taxes -$72 million
*American Electric Power*
Profits: $5.89 billion
Taxes -$545 million
*General Electric*
Profits: $7.7 billion
Taxes: -$4.7 billion
Are you starting to get the picture?
I wish I could make $7.7 billion, pay no taxes and have the government give me $4.7 billion on top of it.
Our system has become corrupted beyond all recognition. We need to throw out the current system of taxation and come up with something entirely new.
In fact, the truth is that for most of U.S. history there was not a federal income tax at all. But that is a story for another day.
If you believe in the U.S. Constitution and in the republic that our founding fathers established, then the very high concentrations of wealth and power in our society today should greatly concern you. Income inequality is not a "Democrat" or a "Republican" issue. A vibrant, thriving middle class should be a goal all of us can embrace.
But I have a feeling a whole lot of "Democrats" and a whole lot of "Republicans" were deeply offended by this article. Feel free to express your opinion by leaving a comment below....
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It is better to go into debt now and repay later with devalued dollars.
By obtaining debt you also create competition for the government and its own attempts to obtain debt - i.e. it's bond auctions. This act of speculation helps draw the collapse nearer and speeds the market to equilibrium.
Debt = slavery.
You might be able to game the system, but most are gamed by the system.
Recent history proves the point.
Debt free = economic [and other] freedom.
I'm offended but it has nothing to do with the article.
Additionally, a study of Income Tax history is more offensive than anything in this article.
Dear fat cats, dont forget to feed the cow or it will stop producing milk.
All those corporations do not pay income taxes, but you should add how much they generate in US payroll taxes.
Me thinks not enough to keep the ponzi band playing.
Me thinks not enough to keep the ponzi band playing.
The game is rigged. The corporate oligarchs win, you lose. Too bad; so sad.
excellent article. we've seen these numbers and stats a number of times. virtually nothing changes over time, nor will it imo except with blood and force. tptb are entrenched and have captured most all of the institutions. no way these fine folks will willingly lose access to wine, women and song. i know the solution for middle class prosperity. actually, it's quite simple. but tptb would be opposed so there's no use going into detail.
So when we talk about tax rates, let's talk about corporate tax rates first. Too many multinationals don't pay any taxes. It's a little premature to tax me more, when the big boys don't pay tax at all. Debt and wage slavery at its finest.
The Road To Serfdom is getting pretty crowded.
It's a superhighway with no exits.
The word I don't understand in the title is "WILL". They already DO!
That's all well and good but the rich has no use for creating jobs. The peon means nothing to them. How do we give the little guy more power so they aren't taken advantage of?
If we get out of free trade, so the corporations that sell us things need to either leave and pay import taxes, or stay and put up with corporate taxes, then many corporations will actually stay because they will see that the only way to avoid those taxes is by growing their corporations here.
Corporations can always avoid corporate income taxes by not having much income. So, they will choose to grow the net worth of the business holdings by expanding. That makes their income a business expense, which is not taxable. It also tends to create jobs.
All this don't tax the rich because they need their money to create jobs totally doesn't work. If we want them to create jobs, we have to make that the only way for them to avoid losing their money to taxes.
EXACTLY right.
IF we had a Congress with any gonads, they would tell each and every corporation that threatened to leave to just get the hell out & don't let the door hit your butt on the way.
THEN, import duties would be imposed and the ex-American corporations could deal with the new tariffs, which, by the way, are a much more effective and level way of collecting revenue to run the country. Don't like it? Fine. Go sell your products elsewhere. See how far you get with that plan. See how much you like living in another country. See how much more fair and reasonable their tax laws are. See how well you do with either new foreign workers or disgruntled ex-Americans.
There should be excess compensation taxes, too, for officers of public corporations. Why should these highly compensated ass-wipes be allowed to cross-pollinate Boards of Directors and vote themselves outrageous pay packages, while shareholders have no way of controlling them and taxpayers have to make up the corporate deductions. Companies SHOULD re-invest in growth, modernization, and long-term shareholder protection. Government should stop providing "incentives" to business for doing what they should do. Instead, they should be penalized for NOT doing what they should do.
Any country that does not protect it's borders is stupid. No different than a homeowner who does not protect his property. Do you lock your car at the mall? Do you close your garage doors at night?
The same principal applies to protecting it's citizens and their way of life. After all, we collectively decided we wanted Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, clean air & water, safe working conditions, public education for all, a sanitation department, good roads, police & fire protection, & doo-dah. How is it that we ask our American manufacturing companies to abide by all the rules and pay the taxes needed to fund all this, yet allow foreign made competition to come in with the very same products and drive them out of business with lower prices......simply because the competing countries don't have any of those requirements?
Free trade is a cruel joke. Trickle down economics is a shysters fantasy. Supply-side economics turns the whole supply & demand equation upside down, and just for fun....it's either guns OR butter, NOT guns AND butter.
I swear, the more MBA's we turn out, the dumber we get as a country.
As a small business owner for 35 years, I could write a book on this, but it's time for a dip in the pool, a cocktail, and dinner. Better enjoy it while I still can, 'cause it gets more fugly every day for folk like me.
"THEN, import duties would be imposed and the ex-American corporations could deal with the new tariffs ..."
Yes, that's exactly how to stop corps moving jobs overseas, impose high tariffs on their imports, make it too expensive to move those jobs overseas, it's cheaper to keep them here.
Then outlaw unions to keep the playing field level. We'll impose high tariffs to keep jobs here, but no unions.
Well said, and very true. I'd also like to point out the absolute groupthink bullshi(vick) in the overall premise of taxing the rich.
"Before you tax the rich too much, you might want to consider the consequences of doing so.
Why should someone bust his or her rear end to run a business and make a lot of money if the government is just going to come along and take over half of all the money that is made?
Personally, if I ever get into a tax bracket where over half the money I make goes to the government then I simply will not work nearly as hard at that point.
But if that starts happening on a large scale, then you have a significant loss of economic activity which hurts the economy overall."
This is EXACTLY what they need to do. The big companies need to be slowed down. It's the only way to make room for others to fill the gap. A ceiling of increasing taxation would lead to a more fragmented industry, with less efficiency and therefore somewhere for new rivals to enter. Since we need more companies and no monopolies, I think the key is high taxation on large entities. Tax the hell out of them. It'll cause principals to fragment. Short term pain, long term viability.
I don't exist.
I dont exist either. Even worse, I think theres a tax on that somewhere....
I also don't exist. And since I've been reduced by the oligarchy to nonexistence, I'm enjoying its benefits, which are primarily that I owe neither my allegiance nor my substance to any of these cancerous leeches.
You must tax individuals otherwise you'll drive all but the most localized businesses elsewhere. Though I'm not saying they shouldn't pay something.
It may have been before your time, but until the federal reserve was illegitimately brought into being, there was no personal income tax nor was there any need for one. Many countries have no income tax. It is a totally criminal invention to spy on the workers and keep them slaves.
If we get out of free trade, then we won't drive all the businesses away. We may drive the giant multinationals away(yay), but smaller businesses will fill the void.
Truthfully, there are also many large corporations that would not leave no matter what. That would be big ag. Big chunks of dirt that grow their product are here. They can't leave.
In 1789 Alexander Hamilton became the first Treasury Secretary of the United States. Hamilton was one of many Founding Fathers who were Freemasons. He had close relations with the Rothschild family which owns the Bank of England and leads the European Freemason movement. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Ethan Allen, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, John Brown and Roger Sherman were all Masons.
Roger Livingston helped Sherman and Franklin write the Declaration of Independence. He gave George Washington his oaths of office while he was Grand Master of the New York Grand Lodge of Freemasons. Washington himself was Grand Master of the Virginia Lodge. Of the General Officers in the Revolutionary Army, thirty-three were Masons. This was highly symbolic since 33rd Degree Masons become Illuminated. [1]
Populist founding fathers led by John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Thomas Paine- none of whom were Masons- wanted to completely severe ties with the British Crown, but were overruled by the Masonic faction led by Washington, Hamilton and Grand Master of the St. Andrews Lodge in Boston General Joseph Warren, who wanted to “defy Parliament but remain loyal to the Crown”. St. Andrews Lodge was the hub of New World Masonry and began issuing Knights Templar Degrees in 1769. [2]
All US Masonic lodges are to this day warranted by the British Crown, whom they serve as a global intelligence and counterrevolutionary subversion network. Their most recent initiative is the Masonic Child Identification Program (CHIP). According to Wikipedia, the CHIP programs allow parents the opportunity to create a kit of identifying materials for their child, free of charge. The kit contains a fingerprint card, a physical description, a video, computer disk, or DVD of the child, a dental imprint, and a DNA sample.
The First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in 1774 under the Presidency of Peyton Randolph, who succeeded Washington as Grand Master of the Virginia Lodge. The Second Continental Congress convened in 1775 under the Presidency of Freemason John Hancock. Peyton’s brother William succeeded him as Virginia Lodge Grand Master and became the leading proponent of centralization and federalism at the First Constitutional Convention in 1787. The federalism at the heart of the US Constitution is identical to the federalism laid out in the Freemason’s Anderson’s Constitutions of 1723. William Randolph became the nation’s first Attorney General and Secretary of State under George Washington. His family returned to England loyal to the Crown. John Marshall, the nation’s first Supreme Court Justice, was also a Mason. [3]
When Benjamin Franklin journeyed to France to seek financial help for American revolutionaries, his meetings took place at Rothschild banks. He brokered arms sales via German Mason Baron von Steuben. His Committees of Correspondence operated through Freemason channels and paralleled a British spy network. In 1776 Franklin became de facto Ambassador to France. In 1779 he became Grand Master of the French Neuf Soeurs (Nine Sisters) Lodge, to which John Paul Jones and Voltaire belonged. Franklin was also a member of the more secretive Royal Lodge of Commanders of the Temple West of Carcasonne, whose members included Frederick Prince of Whales. While Franklin preached temperance in the US, he cavorted wildly with his Lodge brothers in Europe. Franklin served as Postmaster General from the 1750’s to 1775 – a role traditionally relegated to British spies. [4]
With Rothschild financing Alexander Hamilton founded two New York banks, including Bank of New York. [5] He died in a gun battle with Aaron Burr, who founded Bank of Manhattan with Kuhn Loeb financing. Hamilton exemplified the contempt which the Eight Families hold towards common people, once stating, “All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and the well born, the others the mass of the people…The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge and determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share of government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second.”[6]
Hamilton was only the first in a series of Eight Families cronies to hold the key position of Treasury Secretary. In recent times Kennedy Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon came from Dillon Read (now part of UBS Warburg). Nixon Treasury Secretaries David Kennedy and William Simon came from Continental Illinois Bank (now part of Bank of America) and Salomon Brothers (now part of Citigroup), respectively. Carter Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal came from Goldman Sachs, Reagan Treasury Secretary Donald Regan came from Merrill Lynch (now part of Bank of America), Bush Sr. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady came from Dillon Read (UBS Warburg) and both Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Bush Jr. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson came from Goldman Sachs. Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner worked at Kissinger Associates and the New York Fed.
Thomas Jefferson argued that the United States needed a publicly-owned central bank so that European monarchs and aristocrats could not use the printing of money to control the affairs of the new nation. Jefferson extolled, “A country which expects to remain ignorant and free…expects that which has never been and that which will never be. There is scarcely a King in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh – get first all the people’s money, then all their lands and then make them and their children servants forever…banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies. Already they have raised up a money aristocracy.” Jefferson watched as the Euro-banking conspiracy to control the United States unfolded, weighing in, “Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day, but a series of oppressions begun at a distinguished period, unalterable through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery”. [7[
zaknick what is the meaning "become illuminated"? Is it a mystic process or does it have a political meaning?
The Illuminati are a secret society with a mystic aspect to it. They use checkered black and white floors because the believe the spirits dwell between the light and darkness. They also use these two Masonic pillars in their places of "worship". These people have members whose roots go back over a thousand years. Extremely wealthy members although most are the newly rich as in the last 400 years. The control of money has made them into a huge malevolent octopus on humanity.
Any info on the current "owners" of the FED? Not the usual BS about member banks, etc..., but who is Ben Bernanke's boss and thereby the U.S. government's rulers? I know the Bilderberg group is meeting this week, do they set the agenda for the FED and other central banks?
TY. I always thought that Jefferson was a cut above. He also loved good wine.
Exactly, he was also a vegan and one of the nation's first joggers (seriously, not kidding).
He also tried to sell congress on the efficacy of interchangeable parts in the manufacturing process, eons ahead of Eli Whitney who was falsely credited with that.
Jefferson found out about that from a French engineer during his European travels.