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22 Facts That Prove That The Bottom 90% Of America Is Systematically Getting Poorer
Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,
The mainstream media is not telling you this, but the truth is that most Americans are steadily getting poorer. The middle class is being absolutely eviscerated, and poverty is soaring to unprecedented heights. The fact that 90 percent of the population is constantly sliding downhill is not good for our society. The United States is supposed to be a land of opportunity with a vibrant free market system that enables average people to make better lives for themselves.
Unfortunately, free enterprise is being strangled to death in the United States today. Entrepreneurs and small business are being pounded into oblivion by rules, regulations, red tape and oppressive levels of taxation. At the same time, millions of jobs have been shipped out of the United States by corporate giants and sent to countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages. All of this has happened under both Democrats and Republicans. Meanwhile, wealth and power continue to become even more heavily concentrated in the hands of big government and big corporations.
Our founding fathers warned that we should not allow such large concentrations of wealth and power, because they tend to funnel the rewards of society into the hands of a select few. We need to change the rules of the game so that entrepreneurs, small businesses and average workers can thrive in this country once again. If big government and big corporations continue to gobble up even more wealth and power, the wealth inequality that we see right now will only get even worse.
The following are 22 facts that prove that the bottom 90 percent of America is systematically getting poorer...
#1 According to the Pew Research Center, the top 7 percent of all U.S. households own 63 percent of all the wealth in the country.
#2 Between 2009 and 2011, the wealth of the bottom 93 percent of all Americans declined by 4 percent, while the wealth of the top 7 percent of all Americans increased by 28 percent.
#3 On average, households in the top 7 percent have 24 times as much wealth as households in the bottom 93 percent.
#4 In the United States today, the wealthiest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.
#5 According to the Economic Policy Institute, the wealthiest one percent of all American households have 288 times the amount of wealth that the average middle class American family does on average.
#6 According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined.
#7 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have as much wealth as the bottom one-third of all Americans combined.
#8 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the middle class is taking home a smaller share of the overall income pie than has ever been recorded before.
#9 In the United States today, corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time high, but wages as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time low.
#10 In 1980, CEOs at S&P 500 companies made 42 times as much as their employees did on average. Today, CEOs at S&P 500 companies make 354 times as much as their employees do on average. In fact, there are many CEOs that make more than 1000 times what the average employees in their companies make.
#11 According to a report recently issued by the Pew Research Center, Americans over the age of 65 have 47 times as much wealth as Americans under the age of 35 on average.
#12 U.S. families that have a head of household that is under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.
#13 Back in 2007, about 28 percent of all working families were considered to be among "the working poor". Today, that number is up to 32 percent even though our politicians tell us that the economy is supposedly recovering.
#14 At this point, one out of every four American workers has a job that pays $10 an hour or less.
#15 Today, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.
#16 The U.S. economy continues to trade good paying jobs for low paying jobs. 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.
#17 As I mentioned yesterday, the homeownership rate in America is now at its lowest level in nearly 18 years.
#18 The United States now ranks 93rd in the world in income inequality.
#19 Approximately one out of every five households in the United States is now on food stamps.
#20 The number of Americans on food stamps has grown from 17 million in the year 2000 to more than 47 million today.
#21 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either "poor" or "low income".
#22 At this point, the poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.
Even if your income just stays the same, you are still getting poorer because inflation is a tax that is constantly chipping away at the value of every single dollar that you own. The cost of everything that we buy on a regular basis (food, gas, health insurance, etc.) is constantly going up, and if your income is not keeping pace that means that you are getting poorer.
That is just one reason why the Federal Reserve system is so insidious. They are killing the middle class with inflation. For much more on the Federal Reserve and why it should be abolished, please see this article: "10 Things That Every American Should Know About The Federal Reserve".
So if most Americans are getting poorer, then why aren't our politicians doing something to fix it?
Well, the sad truth of the matter is that the big corporations fund the campaigns of our corrupt politicians. They know that the candidate that raises the most money almost always wins, and so it provides an incentive for our politicians to be very good to those that have the money.
Plus, many of our politicians are way too busy having a good time to be bothered with doing anything for us. Take Barack Obama for example. According to The Telegraph, Barack Obama has spent twice as much time playing golf and vacationing as he has on attending economic meetings...
In an analysis of the presidential diary and newspaper reports, the Government Accountability Institute found that Mr Obama has spent 976 hours since his January 2009 election on holiday and playing golf.
In contrast, he has only spent 474.4 hours in economic meetings.
"As a government watchdog group, we just tabulate the numbers and let others decide how to interpret them," said Peter Schweizer, president of GAI, which compiled the report.
But this is a problem that is not going away. The bottom 90 percent of the country is systematically getting poorer, and if this continues it will inevitably result in massive social problems. The video posted below does a great job of graphically illustrating the crisis that we are facing...
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FORWARD !!
End the Fed, bring back Constitutional Money (gold & silver), replace the income tax with a national sales tax and be rid of the IRS.
get rid of the property tax...institute term limits...dump the administrative agencies
How does that help the 50% of Americas who get 2.5% of the wealth of the country? I'm not being a smart ass, I need this explained.
For one, sound money would allow working people to save and earn a real return on their savings. Thrift would be rewarded, not punished. Savers would be able to have secure retirements. Presently the are getting fucked.
Don't you think we've gone past that? I mean don't you think we've gone past the point where any of that matters anymore?
Sadly, yes.
Poverty is growing because we subsidize it...
[the war on poverty is over. Poverty won.]
I do.
Starting today, without going into the reasons why- you already know them, the rest of my life is devoted to the engineered distruction of every system of government in the world. Yes, I will die for this- No, I don't care. I'm already cheering for every freedom fighter that engages in kinetic action in the news, and it can't be long before I join them.
This world has become an unlivable hell-hole, and I, for one, would rather die on my feet screaming Fuck You, than die licking the boots of my self-proclaimed "masters."
And lucky, lucky, for all those reading. I don't even need to be near you for you to participate- hell, at this point, I don't even have to be alive. For you, the folks on the Left coast, this should be especially poignant. You know how you feel kind of safe believing that we all have your backs if North Korea lobs a nuke strapped to a bottle rocket and a prayer? Guess what? You're fucked. I literally built the systems that you are counting on with my own hands, and I was pissed off the whole time. They're probabably ok, though, right? After all, we're all "only human" and we all make mistakes, right? Isn't that why you voted to kill my kids so that bums could have debit cards to use at the liquor stores? Oddly enough, the same reasoning applied when I "pocket-vetoed" your right to security (killing my kids to get bums drunk, that is.) Guess we were on the same page after all, and you can go back to sniffing your farts.
The contractors for the military don't design those missile defense shields, not really- they make a rough draft, and I do all the work that makes them actually function. And, so sorry, but as far as I'm concerned, you can fucking die. Do you think that I will provide even one transient moment of insight to save your sorry asses when my paycheck can't feed my family? Do you think I have done so in years? Well, you're quite the optimist, aren't you? But I'm no Jack Bauer, and neither is my team. I hear more about suicide for insurance money every fucking day of my life than I do about saving you, and that is the literal truth- and it's not a new development. We hung on long enough to ensure that your whole infrastructure has rotted from the same cancer that killed us- that's called being a "team player," for those of you who missed the memo.
That's what happens when you try to kill my family to feed your hoboes. What, you didn't think there could ever be any blowback?
That was weird. I did get some of it, but most was in the kornfield.
Don't sweat it...
On a long enough timeline, you'll be rowing the same boat.
I suppose that is why the link below about generally rising suicide rates is trumphed by suicide rates in the armed forces, and the most overwhelming suicide rates in veterans!
I used to feel that the longer one took to wake up, the better that was for one's career, since it got harder and harder to have any kind of mainstream career, the sooner one woke up. However, I would qualify that with saying that the more one actually provided what one thought was real service to one's country, then the more imperative it personally becomes to never wake up to the realities which surrounded one's situation, because the more one believed in ideals about public service, the worse one is going to end up feeling betrayed!
Most of the comments here so far have tended to be extremely pessimistic, but therefore, the most realistic. ... However, I truly can not comprehend what it would be like to have worked within the established systems for a few decades, before I recognized that those were destroying my future, while reducing everything I had worked for to shit!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biqV_TgSdpU
Toying with US
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpEe0es_YeM
DHS Ammo Splurge: Who's Their Target?No. I liked a lot of it actually. But a good part was obscured in a surrealist veil.
When we speak, we commincate not only facts and figures, but also emotions. This becomes doubly hard when the speech is text, and not modified by tone and body language.
Technical writing is actually a very large portion of my day-to-day life, and I do know how to carefully and accurately communicate instructions, facts and figures. That is not what I do on this forum. To the best of my ability, I try to represent the middle class from a "boots on the ground" POV. I've studied the demographics of ZH readers, and I know that this is one of the only availible venues for me to speak to those who are calling the shots in this crisis short of blowing some stuff up and hoping that they read my manifesto. There are a few others, and on those, I have different names.
That is not to say that a single word of what I write is false- it is not. It *is* somewhat purple at times, though. That is compensation for the sterile nature of text. I could express myself dispassionately, but that would not in any way communicate the very genuine hurt, sadness and rage that I feel every day as I see the lives, future prospects and hopes of my friends and neighbors fade away to serve the whims of a select few.
So yes, the message is sometimes clouded. It has to be- when you live in a surreal world, only surreal words will do to explain it. But don't let that diminish what I have to say here- it is neither joke nor hyperbole. We've all been pushed to the wall- and I actually have had some "elite" training. What I do here is karmic balance, a warning to those who have gone too far before it is too late for them.
They won't listen, they never do. But at least I'll be able to say they were warned.
you work for the NSA?
Brilliant!
I don't have any threats to issue. However, I just want to comment on the suicide issue. I have worked every day of my life and it was all destroyed because of the internal rot.
Anyway, my retirement will be death at work or suicide. This country decided that the only people that have value are those on reality TV and those on wall street. Everyone else is fucked. (PS. Ironic that I worked many years keeping the communists at bay, only to be fucked over by the Wall Street crowd)
The country is filled with unnatural aristrocacy and they have won and they will further bring the country to its death.
I am just fucked with nothing to look for except death.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22391293
Makes me sad :(
Anger is better than sadness. Speaking as one who knows.
Just take as many with you as you can, Pelican.
Just as you worked to keep Communism at bay, I worked on Missile defense to keep your avatar at bay. No more. I've gone "Galt" for a while now, but there is a point where passively allowing design flaws to pass without comment can't help but to move to the big leagues. That means tracking those flaws and directly targeting them.
Again, even if I were to be fired or killed today, it's already been front-run. The writing has been on the wall for a while.
Just remember, your family gets to choose for themselves. It's not that hard for a clever man to end things in such a way that they are provided for financially. Don't know about you, but my children have never known freedom, and they might live a life they can enjoy if left in their ignorance. Nothing sadder than seeing a man kill his kids before opening the exit door, IMO.
Sorry to read of your strife, but consider that you are in this situation because others have "gone Galt." Galt was a fictional industrialist who thought workers were leeches. The message of Atlas Shrugged is that anyone who does not run the corporation is a leech loser. Feel like a leech or do you feel like you've had the blood sucked out of you?
Had the blood sucked out of me, of course.
I know what you're saying, LTER. I'm not on the bandwagon of those hating you. I disagree with some of your arguments, but that goes back to a previous post. Sadly, I don't work for a Rearden, I work for a Taggart- a couple of heirs who may or may not have had good intentions, but continually cave in the walls we build for them through inaction and apparent apathy.
But that being said, it's a complex world. Not a day goes by without the engineering department being blamed for every evil in the company- both from above and from below. The floor dances to our tune, but has no problem pointing a finger when they don't listen to it. To them, we're the parasites, because we're what they see and can blame. The handful of folks above shovel the shit down- conveniently forgetting at every opportunity that we warned them about the results of their inaction and provided solutions that were never implemented.
In this case, however, I am using the meme of "going Galt" loosely. It's not about the "workers-" it's about the thousands I see who do not work, and do not care to- as well as the landed gentry who feel that their inherited wealth and privledges grant them some sort of divine right to enslave me and mine. Similar to the Kingdom model you postulate.
When I work to the best of my abilities, it enriches everyone but myself and my family. It leads to more work with the same or less reward. When I slack off and do little, I am paid the same but have less stress- I am also not contributing to generational wealth that is being used as a cudgel in an attempt to force my mind to produce.
Remember, it wasn't just the owners who were lionized in that book- Eddie Willers was a hero in his own right as well. I'll admit that Rand kind of screwed that example up in the end, but at least he got an honorable mention.
I won't debate Rand with you because you're having a bad day and I don't begin to claim that I know the answer. Chances are if you're in the engineering department that you'll get your day. The best revenge is living well.
Being a 'supporter' or a 'producer' for the system normally yields tremendous benefits. Until, that point in time when you wake up, like in your penultimate paragraph. Waking up is dangerous. Waking up puts you at tremendous (and immediate) risk. Those who wake up must make a choice: Do I continue to be a producer, or, a suporter of the system, or, do I STOP? Those who stop will incur the everlasting wrath of the system which will tear them and their lives apart. Those who decide to continue being supporters and producers will do quite well...
They'll get the vacation house in Veil or Kauaii. They'll get the promotions. They'll get the bonuses and the 401ks. They'll get the stock options. It's just like in the movie They Live. Those who go along with the system reap the benefits of the system. Those who do not are reaped.
"At least we lived well for twelve years!" Hermann Göring, Nuremberg 1945
Says it all ...
That Hermann.... always the card!
Fuck Göring.
Based on your description, I feel like you could be sitting in the cube next to me...
I never thought much about it, but I've been doing the same thing - "going Galt" loosely. It is so much less stressful to just let it ride and go along with whatver the non-engineering types demand. Rather than break my neck trying to explain the physics as well as the cost/benefit of doing it right the first time, I just let it slide with a smile. And when it breaks, I take my time fixing it because it obviously wasn't that big of a deal when it was being built, so it can't possibly be that big of a deal now that it's broken.
Do I know how to fix it quickly? Maybe. Will I do it? Nope. I'll take care of it when I'm back from lunch - which now lasts at least two hours by the way...
Perhaps they should have given me - and everyone else in engineering - a raise that would actually keep up with the real inflation level instead of throwing all those hundred-thousand-dollar executive parties and then claiming that "times are tough" when it's review time.
Pity.
You're smarter than me. It took me my entire career to work out the "proper" work methodology.
I'd had a few too many gin & tonics last night to properly appreciate what you were saying. But now that I re-read with a sober eye, I can see, you are a gifted writer and thinker.
One cannot be completely against Rand and for Freedom at the same time.
Workers are producers. Producers are workers. That's pretty much the whole point of the book. "Elites" cannot maintain their "status" without convincing others to work for them.
Galt was a producing worker - working for someone else's motor company - until he "woke up". "Going Galt" means recognizing that you always work for yourself, even when someone else signs the paycheck.
When he saw the rottenness of the system, he decided to take action.
One of the reasons the book focuses on heads of companies is because all of them were contributing to the problem, feeding the beast, without realizing it. Another reason is that they were the quickest way to expose the beast and stop the corrupt system.
The book did a great job describing the problem, thereby offering a glimpse on how to solve it. People "waking up" is a key part of that.
We the People create the world we live in with every choice we make.
Truth => Individual => Responsibility => Freedom
Everything good in life requires free will.
That's dark. I know darkness. Been there a few times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B5Iihpx484
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NcLNoxiPBk
If you hate them stop working for them. If they're stealing from your families future stop working for them. R. Buckminster Fuller had served as an engineer in the US Armed Forces and on retiring found himself stood on a cliff edge with the intention of committing suicide. He decided, instead, to devote himself wholeheartedly and exclusively to endeavours that had the potential to benefit all mankind equally.
Sharing is caring, protectionism is theft?
Dude, you need to switch to decaf.
No, you need to find your balls.
How can you not be enraged by the theft and murder of everything around you, Timmy? Is it some kind of magic pill that keeps your days full of sunshine and rainbows?
It looks rather clear the plan is to transfer the wealth to a few. Once that occurs, the rest of the country will be brought into third world status. Why you ask? Too many people consuming too much stuff. The wealthy families see this and are planning for popluation reduction. They will try poverity first, and if that doesn't work war.
It is amazing, this could be a beutiful beutiful life, however a few people fuck it up for everyone else.
The only thing that keeps this economy alive is credit, spending, and debt. Along with hot beef injections from the FED.
USGDP is Consumerism. All savers must die.
47% should not receive anything they don't work for. The other 50% will be allowed to keep what they DO work for and only pay for what they consume. No workee, no payee. Charity starts in the home(that isn't mortgaged, taxed, in foreclosure due to bank fraud, etc.). It worked before, it can work again. Oh, and Bernanke, this just came in an email: FUCK YOU!
It is the corporate welfare that funnels the wealth of the middle and poor to the top, don't kid yourself, "socialism" is welfare for the rich, not the poor.
To me, a separate thread. I don't believe that 'corporate welfare' would survive sunlight if Citizen's hadn't paved the way for the largest goodie basket of all time for politicians paying off their 'corporate constituents'. I don't think corp's would survive wholesale abandonment by consumers creating and selling their goods and keeping their own profits. No doubt .Gov largesse to corps would have to end but that's where term limits, reversal of Citizen's, and the revocation of the 17th come to mind among a laundry list of other changes.
Yeah...my number one is to get rid of the special interests influence in DC. No more buying-off of this now fascist fuck government.
A government that serves the people and not corporate masters and themselves.
A government that gets the same ratshit deal they try and pawn off on the public...like zerOcare, no insider trading, same retirement, etc.
Good luck with that. I believe the first law passed and signed by Washington was a hack, corporate, money bill to support shipping.
( it's always about the money )
Outlaw lobbyists while we're at it
You mean by shooting them, not by passing some law, right?
Hah, sure get rid of one of the few effective taxes which prevent wealth accumulation ... hell throw in estate taxes too. Surely that will help.
I could get behind giving an individual non transferrable exemption sufficient for say a small farm though.
Constitutional Money is also also called bimetalism. The central banksters aka European bankster families killed President McKinley because he was supporting bimetalism for the USA. One of the last good guys in America.
So ... taxation used to pay people who arbitrage unnaturally fixed gold/silver exchange rates is a good thing? That is what bimetallism always results in after all.
I think you are confusing fiat with real money
No, I'm talking about bimetallism ... a historic system where the exchange rate between gold and silver was artificially fixed by government, which always resulted in arbitrage and lots of taxes going to the people performing that arbitrage.
Woodrow Wilson after creating the Federal Reserve said:
I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.
***replace the income tax with a national sales tax and be rid of the IRS.***
Did you even read this article or watch the video?
Gee, ya think ? Seeing as every friend I have except one is recently out of work, that Construction Spending is crashing like a brick... Ya think we might be in trouble??
Also, ya think Obama the idiot might be someone's N-word? Naaa, that's just crazy Conspiracy stuff.
World is full of Morons.
Yes we can bitchez......yes we can!
This whole list is bullish news for a new housing bubble, er I mean recovery.
Keep Calm and Slave On!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deuC8GPr31A
A sardonic +1
Obama sees this list, contacts Soros who appears via hologram wearing a robe and hood and saying, "You have done well, my friend. All is going exactly as I have foreseen."
He hates to do that because the smell of brimstone lingers so.
Both of you need to update your org charts. Soros reports to Vader.
Empire, Inc.
...and then Consuela says, "Meester Soros, you need more lemon pledge."
"The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have as much wealth as the bottom one-third of all Americans combined."
Call me a Marxist, but this is fucked up. I have no problem with handing down wealth, but surely as a society we must accept that there should be some reasonable limit unless we wish to accept a de facto royalty model. The vast majority of wealth in the entire world is held by people who were born to it. The U.S. is supposed to be different.
I say their punishment is to be stripped of their wealth, and have to live on a Walmart greeter salary and benefits for the rest of their lives, while only eating cheap crap from Walmart. I say let the punishment fit the crime!
And the sentence for your crime is ... Greeter. In Detroit.
Detroit.
So far the only city where the remaining populace have publicly blamed its demise on the whites moving to the suburbs.
Jesus Harold Fucking Christ, will this shit never end?
The populace of Detroit is not a single entity. There are many there who seek something for nothing, but that's not fundamentally what destroyed the city. The business model there of making things and earning a solid living is so 1950's. Now, you just need to be born to the right family. Think the Walton heirs don't feel entitled?
"The populace of Detroit is not a single entity."
But the ones who financially raped them are...like Kwame Kilpatrick. It was a cesspool long before he arrived but offering "federal stuff" & encouragement to the Free Shit Army to keep them at arms length while he makes off with the last spoon in the drawer is hardly noteworthy.
Detroit was a great city in its day. It is now like a crack whore looking for a new pimp. I'll give you that, but it didn't have to be that way.
"Detroit was a great city in its day."
What day was that LTER, when unions ran the show and bought politicians by the bucket full or when politicains made promises by the bucket full?
Where has that gotten them?
....but it didn't have to be that way.
Well yeah it did - once the unions and Democrats had total control Detroit it just happened.
Sort of like California is imploding. And no I don't like the Waltons.
Go look at some of those web pictures of Detroit. It looks like the photos of the town next to Chernobyl where the people just fled the city in one day.
In Detroit, offices and other buildings look the same. Stuff just left behind. They fled the plaugue and the locust with ObamaPhones in Detroit.
Detroit was instrumental in winning WWII. It was an industrial powerhouse in an era when CEOs understood that workers needed to be able to buy the shit the company was selling.
Detroit's problem is not what it used to be, but what is is now LTER.
Take him to Detroit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVDDYQlmq0w
So, if we strip the Waltons of their wealth, exactly who do we give it to?
Do we give it to the state to do what they wish with it?
I'd rather the Walton's keep it.
The state has done nothing but waste money for decades.
If you want to screw the Waltons, stop shopping at Walmart and Sam's Club.
One problem is the system that allowed the Waltons to accumulate so much wealth for being born to it. The other problem is the state that is completely fucked, over-bloated, corrupt (by Waltons among others), and bordering on totalitarianism. Why is it that when complex problems present themselves we need to frame the debate between which rapist gets to go next?
"One problem is the system that allowed the Waltons to accumulate so much wealth for being born to it."
You have a problem with inheritance?
Just royalty.
Do me a favor and downtick yourself ;-)
For you Newman, anything. -2.
Oh goodie, you've brought along a "silent partner", how chivalrous ;-)
So tell me, you TWO, how again is Sam Waltons wealth to be expropriated & redistributed equally among the "masses"? By government?
And I thought I was a conspiracy theorist.
Newman, the problem is complex. I certainly do not advocate for taking the Walton's money and giving it to Obama. I don't have an easy answer to our problems like you do. So let's just ask for moar. Thank you sir may I have another.
So its not Kings & Queens? Its not people shopping at Wally-World because its all they can afford?
Why can't they afford to shop at Tiffany's? Is heaping scorn on them beneath or above you?
It's all they can afford because their job options are now Wal-Mart or Wally-World. Causation/Correlation, newman.
Not so, they can work for .gov and become a parasite on the rest of society.
So you would make Walmart completely unprofitable as a going concern and put the shopper and employee out of a job...or would you just nationalize it and then strip the Walton heirs of their wealth?
Causation/Correlation = fairy dust farting marxist LTER.
One trick pony. Binary solutions to complex problems. Simple minded. Etc.
Last word.
That pony has legs though...and I'm simple minded compared to what?
The glory of fiscally bombed out Detroit and its zombies pleading for someone ELSE to help the survivors of their own folly? And you, offering nothing but the same thing that got them there.
That thing was squeezed dry decades ago, anyone with half a brain has left it. Your idea is to destroy any saved capital that might want to take a chance on a long shot because they have saved capital. Destroy it by allowing the federal government to confiscate it...because they run such a fiscaly tight ship at approaching SEVENTEEN TRILLION in "counted" debt, one would have to suppose.
You're an idiot.
Nmewn, normally i like your posts... But jeasus you are either simple minded or close minded.
THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE WALTON HEIRS INHERITING A TITLOAD OF MONEY
THE PROBLEM IS A SOCIETY WHERE THE VAST MAJORITY (i believe ninety percent or more) of millionairs and above are BORN THAT WAY.
People are being born into their respective places....
You could take all the waltons money and shove it up a very fat pogs ass... Or you could let them keep it and give them a few billion more....
They are merely a manifestation of the problem, not the problem itself. The walton heirs were born richer than basically every american, they have more power economically than the bottom 150million.... Why? Because of their royal blood? Seriously that is a huge fucking problem... A huge huge huge problem.... Dont act like it isnt, and dont ask me what to do with their money, id rather prevent the error than fix it. Any programmer would agree.
P.s. sorry for my spelling, english is not my native language.
Nmewn, normally i like your posts... But jeasus you are either simple minded or close minded.
THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE WALTON HEIRS INHERITING A TITLOAD OF MONEY
THE PROBLEM IS A SOCIETY WHERE THE VAST MAJORITY (i believe ninety percent or more) of millionairs and above are BORN THAT WAY.
People are being born into their respective places....
You could take all the waltons money and shove it up a very fat pogs ass... Or you could let them keep it and give them a few billion more....
They are merely a manifestation of the problem, not the problem itself. The walton heirs were born richer than basically every american, they have more power economically than the bottom 150million.... Why? Because of their royal blood? Seriously that is a huge fucking problem... A huge huge huge problem.... Dont act like it isnt, and dont ask me what to do with their money, id rather prevent the error than fix it. Any programmer would agree.
P.s. sorry for my spelling, english is not my native language.
Nmewn, normally i like your posts... But jeasus you are either simple minded or close minded.
THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE WALTON HEIRS INHERITING A TITLOAD OF MONEY
THE PROBLEM IS A SOCIETY WHERE THE VAST MAJORITY (i believe ninety percent or more) of millionairs and above are BORN THAT WAY.
People are being born into their respective places....
You could take all the waltons money and shove it up a very fat pogs ass... Or you could let them keep it and give them a few billion more....
They are merely a manifestation of the problem, not the problem itself. The walton heirs were born richer than basically every american, they have more power economically than the bottom 150million.... Why? Because of their royal blood? Seriously that is a huge fucking problem... A huge huge huge problem.... Dont act like it isnt, and dont ask me what to do with their money, id rather prevent the error than fix it. Any programmer would agree.
P.s. sorry for my spelling, english is not my native language.
Third times the charm and I'm not a spelling nazi ;-)
From my POV, if you invent something, build a successful company (like Walton did) or improve on an existing product or service you are entitled to keep your wealth and do with it what you want. Pass it down to your family or spend it on coke & hookers or cut your last check in life to .gov if you are so inclined.
Why?
Because you earned it, it is your reward for believing in yourself when no else did, your vision, your long hours, your sacrifice. In other words, you did build that. And it was all taxed "progressively" by the state for the roads & bridges, fire departments, cops and to pay for the hoards of regulators that descend on you like a Biblical swarm of locusts for being productive and aquiring wealth.
I don't know how everyone assumes the rich kid can keep the inheritance and compound it forever, its not always the case. I personally know several "old money" kids who have lost/wasted it all. Others pulled up from the flaming nose dive at the last second.
One of them was raised in the fabulous wealth of his parents, way above my middle class means on Snell Isle (an exclusive place back in the day in St.Pete). Now he owns a small Mom & Pop type restaurant far away from that island. He employs people and is far from rich.
Its not a static world.
How about an inheritance tax on anyone who works for or connected to .gov and became wealthy as a result of it. Say, presidents, senators, house members, Wall Street executives?
But even that is giving into the notion that .gov has a "better plan" for that all that wealth. Its simply stating no citizen has a right to become wealthy, which is nonsensical, as they are now pushing seventeen trillion in debt. They are not now nor have they ever have been, the best managers of anyones wealth.
Definitely not the "nations" wealth.
When they get tax breaks, roads built and infrastructure built by the purse of the people then charge lower prices and run mom and pop businesses out because the little guys don't have all the breaks I do think it's not rightfully theirs.
Buffet knew ahead of time the gov would backstop GS preferreds. That's theft, not investing.
Corporate malfeasance passed down to their heirs.
I got no problem with passing down wealth, I hope to receive and give some in the future myself. What I have a problem with is the corporatocracy ripping us all off. Corporations are not people, should be regulated at a state level and corporate officers should be held criminally liable for crimes "the corporation" commits under their leadership.
I'm no marxist but yeah, I'll take their money and give it to the bottom half.
When they get tax breaks, roads built and infrastructure built by the purse of the people then charge lower prices and run mom and pop businesses out because the little guys don't have all the breaks I do think it's not rightfully theirs.
Buffet knew ahead of time the gov would backstop GS preferreds. That's theft, not investing.
Corporate malfeasance passed down to their heirs.
I got no problem with passing down wealth, I hope to receive and give some in the future myself. What I have a problem with is the corporatocracy ripping us all off. Corporations are not people, should be regulated at a state level and corporate officers should be held criminally liable for crimes "the corporation" commits under their leadership.
I'm no marxist but yeah, I'll take their money and give it to the bottom half.
By stating that you believe that the Waltons should be relieved of their wealth also implies that by association, you, should also be relieved of your wealth, no matter how insignificant when compared to the Walton's or others.
For, no matter how poor you believe you are, someone somewhere is poorer than you, and is now thinking that you should be relieved of your wealth.
Binary. Black and white. There is no middle ground.
Your answer is meaningless.
So the Waltons inherited daddy's money and company. Whether you like it or not, they took Sam Walton's company and made it a bigger success than even good ole dad even dreamed.
They did a lot of things I don't agree with like drive local business owners out, but so did Home Depot, Lowes, Target, and a host of other big box stores. They sourced a lot of products from China sending US jobs overseas. They don't pay their associates very well, but it does keep prices lower.
All I can say is, if you don't agree with their business model, don't shop there. Currently in today's high inflation environment it doesn't make a lot of sense to cut your nose off to spite your face and not take advantage of their bulk purchasing power.
Being Pure Evil, I don't have much in the way of scruples anyway.
A system that allows de facto Kings and Queens to exist is pure evil. These are complex problems, but the answer is not moar.
Oh please. Kings and Queens?
As if they force you to shop at Walmart or Sam's Club.
So, if you were to inherit a significant sum of monies or a thriving business from your parents, or some family member or kin, exactly what would you do with the inheritance?
Let's say the inheritance was on the order of what the Walton kids inherited.
Since you're all for the confiscation of this type of wealth, what exactly would you do?
They are Kings and Queens in every way that matters. They didn't earn their wealth and they have tremendous power to do essentially whatever they want. If you want simple solutions, I don't have one. But a system that keeps money out of politics and that gives shareholders real rights to control the destiny of companies would be a start. And perhaps an inheritance tax that graduated up to 100% beyond say $25M or even $100M. No, it's not fair to those few who accumulate more than that, but I don't think the world is fair and dynastic wealth is destructive.
So, what you're saying is that you'd have no problem having the vast majority of your wealth go to the state if you inherited a fortune along the lines that the Walton's inherited.
I also don't agree with you on the part about not earning their wealth. Do you know for a fact that the kids didn't work along side their father in running the company.
What proof do you have that they are a bunch of laze-a-bouts living off the sweat of others, which by the way is exactly what the STATE does.
"So, what you're saying is that you'd have no problem having the vast majority of your wealth go to the state if you inherited a fortune along the lines that the Walton's inherited."
No, I would fucking hate it. I would probably bribe every politician I could find to change the law to benefit me. Wouldn't make it what is best for a healthy economy and a functioning society.
If I were purely obsessed with me and what I think I deserve because I believe I will be a hundred millionaire one day and I don't want to share, my username would be "I Love Rand."
Ha ha.
So, you'd like to see people's wealth, inherited or not, go to the biggest parasites on the planet, THE STATE.
The STATE that produces nothing, and endlessly consumes the wealth produced by the sweat of others.
I would also change the State in my unicorn world. In your unicorn world, there is no state. Just Waltons.
Uh oh, now you've gone and done it.
You've degenerated into name calling and insults.
Any more cute quips about unicorns and the Waltons?
"And perhaps an inheritance tax that graduated up to 100% beyond say $25M or even $100M."
And there you have it ladies & gentlemen. More "progressive taxation" for the federal government to do what with...exactly?
Build some more Fisker cars, a few moar solar panels, keep the Free Shit Army from invading LTER's florist shop while she keeps her employees below 30hrs to avoid ObamaCare, HellFire missle a few moar brown ME skins, issue some moar grant money to county sheriffs to "counsel" the unenlightened, bailout Detroit again, Clunkers, Caulkers and Squawkers this time?
Its not as complicated as you think.
I'm still waiting for my Obama phone.
I guess when I was filling out the application I should have put oppressed minority instead of member of Walton clan.
Downvote for falling back on tired cliches when your worldview is challenged.
No more than you, see you're response above.
Stop worshipping Capitalism like it's some kind of God, for fuck sakes.
Open your fucking mind. Stating X doesn't deserve Y does not mean all XYZ dont deserve Y.
You realize how many people are born into their respective wealth....
Try almost all of them.. THERE IS A HUGE PROBLEM WITH THIS, OPEN YOUR FUCKING MIND. The world isnt black and white.
Open your fucking mind. Stating X doesn't deserve Y does not mean all XYZ dont deserve Y.
You realize how many people are born into their respective wealth....
Try almost all of them.. THERE IS A HUGE PROBLEM WITH THIS, OPEN YOUR FUCKING MIND. The world isnt black and white.
Don't look at the kids, look at the brutal efficiency of the corporate model. Nothing is sacred to them. From promising big tax revenues to local governments (and getting tax breaks) to their trendsetting in the field of skimping on a product so it is merely a shadow of what it was, it is their business model which is the problem.
Do not EVER buy anything with moving parts from Walmart. The motors, gears, switches, linkages have been cheapened so much that they are barely functional. Suppliers are forced to skimp to meet Walmart's price points.
Found that out when researching a floor cleaner. Same model anywhere else was $50 bucks more. Had almost the same model name and it was cheap as hell. Supplier did not even carry parts for that model, only for the model which it was based on. Now that trend is carrying over to the other box stores, and it is killing any regular dealers of the same brands.
Only thing you can do is stop shopping there and let them die a slow, painful death surrounded by land whales on scooters and cheap ass junk.
pods
Can't disagree with you on any of that, especially the land whales and cheap ass junk.
same thing has been happening for years at HOME DEPOT, you think their hand tools are the same as say a General Fastener Store whose Dewalt drill is $50 bucks more. Think again. Most moving parts in a Home Depot tool are a composite plastic, nothing is metal inside it and with professional use won't last 6 months. A tool with metal parts lasts as long as it takes one of your guys to steal it.
Or the latest RE ponzi scheme known as nattie gas fracking. Drill a well. Two. Five. Ten. Then take out loans. Wells go dry in two years. Oh, so solly. We all bloke now. No mohnee. Chesapeake Energy much?
Two more generations and the Waltons will be broke. That usually happens over three generations but Tamara Ecclestone proves it could happen sooner.
Goddamn you're an optimist!
I give globalization less than 5 years and it's dead as Dillinger.
if we strip the Waltons of their wealth...
Who is we?
The usual we is an organized gang of thieves called "state." I wouldn't want to give them anything.
And, I don't want to strip anyone's wealth. I just want to stay away from the slave game.
Instead of stripping the Waltons of their wealth why don't we require them to pay their employees a living wage so they don't have to be on food stamps.
The north winds at getting to you knukles. Kick back and have a cold one.
Wal-Mart cutting into your bottom line, LTER?
The Waltons are small fries. They can't even open their own bank.
Not directly, but the Wal-Mart model is demonstrative of what is wrong with our economy.
I agree with you, which makes us both Commi's.
If we question the Kingdom model, we are commies. Pretty smart those guys.
That makes me a card-carrying red then too. Wal-Mart is now having the same disasterous down stream effects on US food production system as it has had on much of the US manufacturing system too.
It's difficult for me to be firmly pro- or anti- Walmart because I run into cognitive dissonance either way.
However, the things that are wrong with the economy run a lot deeper than Wal-Mart, and the Tylers delve into these things on a daily basis.
There is no cognitive dissonance in being anti-Wal-Mart, but I couldn't agree more that there's much more to the story of "what's wrong" than Wal-Mart by itself.
The cognitive dissonance I run into is that: Wal-Mart is ruthlessly effective at operating within the framework it has. That is the mark of quality entrepreneurship. But OTOH, the framework itself is so seriously fucked up that it enables all sorts of exploitation that could be considered unethical.
On yet another hand (borrowing the neighbor's here), the banks absolutely will not let them into the banking system -- so there could be some enemy-of-my-enemy going on there, too. (Perhaps Enemy Within could share his expertise on enemyship?)
Ultimately, address the fucked up framework in place, and things like Wal-Mart take care of themselves.
Addressing the fucked up framework is exactly my premise. I don't begin to suggest that I have a magic answer, but the system is broken and fixing it must include some kind of limit to dynastic wealth.
The Waltons are hardly dynastic, as I said before: they're small fries who can't even start their own bank. Once the system they rely on for profit fails, we'll see what happens to them.
I think Wal-Mart is eating into your bottom line in some way. What are you doing about that?
May I conclude this discussion;
trying how to figure out how to unwind GENERATIONAL THEFT is pointless and a tail chasing excercise. Possession being 9/10th the law is a pretty decent and hard logic to defeat and only leaves you 1/10th from which to make a stand. To try and fight that squirrel inside a paperbag is just gonna leave evrybody bloody and frustrated. What is undeniable and wrong is that so few have been ABLE to completely fuck over SO MANY. And they know it and they also know it can't and won't be taken back. You lose twice, it ain't coming back and everyday you stand around, more is being taken from you. that 2.5% is still 2.5% too much. Drink it! Piss it! Fuck it! Shit it! but whatever you do don't STOP IT!
OR
You do stop it! How, is up to you! The truly sad,sad,sad part (as an outsider) you guys couldn't put together a team concept if your lifes depended on it and that's exactly what it would take to NOT take it back but at least STOP THE HUMILIATING ass rape that you are silently taking day in and day out. It is not befitting a great hard working honest people.
Well said.
P.S. Rand always just wanted a reach around.
cheers LT
I welcome the day that something I'm passionate about becomes black market material.
Until then, how does one operate in a sea of reportniks who 1099 every transaction and scoff threateningly at the idea of doing any business under the table? How?
I sock away my extra FRNs into silver. That's all I can do until some of these businessfolk wise up. Luckily, I have 50+ years left in me, so I can speculate on waiting it out for while. The system will crash regardless of what I do. Plus, tax dollars don't even fucking matter anymore as they just print the shortfall anyway.
But, if we take all their money away where will the next Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne come from?
Seriously though, let it go. This sounds more like envy and jealousy. Some billionaires do cool stuff like fund an independent spaceflight company or ride submersibles to the ocean trenches while others waste it on worthless possessions or partying. As long as they don't acquire their wealth by illegal means it is none of my business. The poor in America have better food, more comfortable housing and better healthcare than the kings of yore. It is all relative and we should tend to our own gardens.
As long as they don't acquire their wealth by illegal means it is none of my business.
YES!!!
I don't give a shit how wealthy the Walmart kids are. I just want the government to get its fucking jackboot off of my neck so I can work, make my own damn money and save for my own future! Anything else is just more bull shit class warfare used to misdirect the stupid.
"Rand" Many years back I read a book about the history of Sam Walton and his move into the Walmart retailing model. Not to judge the good or bads or how his model resulted in the greatest revolution in American retailing, I was amazed at how simple his idea was and how singled minded he was in putting it into effect.
I grew up in the old America of the 60's. Small town America, with a vibrant downtown busines district, with many stores of all kinds owned by family businesses and run by town residents, who often lived above their stores. We had a perfecrt Norman Rockwell downtown, right up to the dentists office being above the drug store and our doctors office upstairs of the lttle railway depot. The corner gas stations, small clothing retailers for men and women. We knew the guy who owned the shoe store. My neighbor ran the creamery on main street. etc. etc.
What was not so sweet about this model America was that the nearest larger city was an hour by car, and not everyone had cars. And the roads were bad anyways. Long story short, the prices that were charged to the towns working citizens for nearly all items were just outrageous. I mean sky high. Thus a pair of shoes was a once a year event. And so forth, you get what I mean.
What Walton saw was most of these small business guys were terrible business men and only thirved in the near monoply they had in small towns. Walton saw the opportunity to go for economy of scale, and to take advantage of the rising automobile culture the late 60's brought.
Starting small, he went after the whole salers first and bought in huge bulk, soon adding stores and being able to farm those bulk orders out across his growing system. Economy of scale exploded and he soon could undercut all the local businessmen in price. He made stores bigger, stocked more to make his store a one stop low price shopping haven.
Much has happened since the beginning. The whole slave labor camps in China and his move to destroy labor's pay and benefits. When he started out, he actually was liked by many of his employees. No more. We now know how things have changed.
All I can say for Walton though, is that he saw how locals were being ripped off blind by the famous small town retailers, and he hatched a plan to beat them with superior business skill. It was an amazing story.
Big Box now rules the world, slave Chinese labor now rules the world.
I feel a little sick that later greed has destroyed what began as a way to deliver low prices and selection to small town Americans. Once Walmart hit the areas, workers could buy the kids shoes 3 times a year, and clothes we no longer a luxury saved only for opening of the school year.
Walton's dream was destroyed by his family and he himslef became a victim of unbrideled greed in the end. Sad end to an good beginning.
We were so badly ripped off by our local business folks in this town when I was a kid, as an adult when I got home from the military and saw them all going out of business, I confess feeling a little revenge. Like when my Mom blew a months spare wages just to put two new shoes on us two boys!
Repent my fellow Americans, and put your faith in The Lloyd and his Angels.
The Lloyd sayeth we have no idea how lucky we are to be blessed with him and those like him. They're all here to save us.
We must change our hedonistic ways before it's too late.
Bow down and worship the almighty bankers before it's too late.
The Lloyd giveth, and the Lloyd taketh away. Correction. The Lloyd taketh.
BOOM !
At this point, the poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States. Tick Tock
Wake up call imminent, that video says it all....new column for the 1% to stack their cash, indeed
Too bad 90% of them couldn't proportionately lose weight as well.
Fact is, as of March 30, every person employed in the US owes $117 000 on the national debt. Back when Obama took office, it was $74 800.
That's improvement we can believe in.
Or we could just give the bill to the Walton heirs whose contribution to the world was being born.
Had they not been born, what would have been the result? Would there have been less wealth? (Careful how you answer that one, Karl).
I see entitlement as a concept broader than poor people wanting other people's money. Every tryant who ever lived felt entitled to their spoils, whether earned by blood and sword, or birth.
Do they teach you libs how to dodge questions like that? I suppose you believe that no one in the "top 10%" earned their keep. (Be REAL careful how you avoid answer that one)
This "lib" voted for Ron Paul so be REAL careful who you call a lib. I have worked hard and I am glad that most people don't have what I have that made me successfull financially. But I would prosper even more in a system that is not rigged for the Waltons of the world, and I would not have to worry for example about having to save millions of dollars for retirement because I may get sick one day and need to buy medical care without a big company or government pension available to me.
LTER: I took a screen shot and copied the text of your post. I couldn't believe what you just wrote!
What would YOU do if you had the power of the Walton family? I'm afraid to ask...
I am quite sure I would be a complete douche and love every minute of it. For me, it would be an awesome system that I would fight hard to keep. I would fund politicians and buy radio and TV stations to propagate my pro-me propaganda. And I would hope that many people would think they one day could be me too, and thus allow 99% of society to live hand to mouth so that I could continue to have everything for doing nothing.
Would'a gave ya a plus 100 for honesty if I could have. Only got plus 1.
You raise interesting points about human nature. I'm sure many on this forum who "think" they are benevolent at heart would do a complete 180 degrees if they suddenly became a Walton.
Lets all walk our own path and stop following the herd and trying to be a Walton.