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Summing Up America's Class "Struggle"
Presented with no comment...
(h/t Jim Quinn's Burning Platform blog)
Of course, as we noted here, the rich have never felt more comfortable relative to the poor...Those with an income over $99,000 per year are the most comfortable they have been in 6 years while the lower incomes (below $40,000) have seen their comfort plunge to one-year lows. It seems, as Druck noted earlier, that the wealth redistribution is having a visceral effect on sentiment.
Chart: Bloomberg
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Like rape in India, it's your fault.
the poor are still way too content as per above chart.
Income over $99K are not exactly rich. Try $999K.
agreed. i made that comment and everyone here went nuts on that. ;)
Ask the school teacher with fireman or cop as spouse if they understand that they are RICH.
$99k is way too low.
If you ask the school teacher, the $80k social worker will take your kids from you; if you ask the fireman, you'll get inspected for code violations; and if you ask the cop, you'll need a hospital AND a lawyer.
In any case, you'll end up losing your house.
So, better not ask. K?
You didn't ask that...
You didn't down vote that. Al Gore down votes that... he built that Internet. You didn't build that Internet. Chinese built that keyboard you used to down vote that. Warren Buffet owns the power company that you bought your electricity from to d
> So, better not ask. K?
Yeah ... and don't even mention that teachers, cops and firemen are all union gang members, or even more horrible shit will fall upon you.
Fuck these parasites. All part of the problem.
Exactly. Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
says 7% of individuals earn more than 100k/year in 2011. 17% per household.
Richard Chesler "Income over $99K are not exactly rich. Try $999K."
VD "agreed. i made that comment and everyone here went nuts on that. ;)"
macholatte "Ask the school teacher with fireman or cop as spouse if they understand that they are RICH. $99k is way too low."
Comment"
It's like the matrix of people that don't understand that the "class" is a structural phenonemon that one has to accept. One can feel rich and live within their means with an income of whatever income, even an income below 99k. The matrix forces you to compare yourself to others as a measurement of success when in fact it isn't success at all for you, but success for the matrix. It doesn't mean you shouldn't do all you can to achieve all you can, but how you measure success is a flaw.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1M_8ByLMJQ
Exactly. Fortunately, our troubles - if this material is correct - can be easily solved. Since all of the professions and all the good job holders are sitting pretty, if we can just double the welfare in the country we will have satisfied everyone. And then knock down that old American cliche, "Land of Opportunity," and replace it with Lenin's "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
And, by the way, what in the name of all that is serious does an obscenely wealthy billionaire, Duquesne's Stanley Druckenmiller who is advocating cutting retirees' SS benefits, know about the well-being of someone who makes $99,000?
Based on the Internal Revenue Service’s 2010 database, here’s the floor earnings in the IRS categories that show how much the top Americans make:
Top 1%: $380,354; Top 5%: $159,619; Top 10%: $113,799; Top 25%: $67,280; Top 50%: >$33,048.
http://www.financialsamurai.com/2011/04/12/how-much-money-do-the-top-income-earners-make-percent/
those with income over $99k with $3.5 million in liquid assets might be comfortable, if they lose their job they can get by for quite a while.
Think you've got the assets a little too high...
Federal Reserve Bulletin: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System – June 2012
Family net worth, by selected characteristics of families, 2001-2010 surveys. Thousands in 2010 dollars.
The median net worth for 2010: All families, $77,300.
By percentile of income (2010): Less than 20, $6,200; 20-39.9, $25,600; 40-59.9, $65,900; 60-79.9, $128,600; 80-89.9, $286,600; 90-100, $1,194,300.
The median net worth in 2001 for comparison (in 2010 dollars):
By percentile of income (2001): Less than 20, $9,600; 20-39.9, $45,900; 40-59.9, $78,000; 60-79.9, $178,800; 80-89.9, $322,400; 90-100, $1,021,500.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2012/pdf/scf12.pdf
People had more incentive to save when savings yields/CDs were in the 7-9% range I suspect. Now, with 0.01% "high yield" accounts as well as the rather recent fad of "just walking way" from all debts, people have more incentive to "shop 'till they drop."
This debt craze is additionally compounded by the ubiquitous "zero down, no interest for five years, etc" loans whether it's a $60k car, a $600k house or a $6k bedroom set.
The last time I checked, 100k per year put one in the top 20%.
The top .01% make more than $20K each minute on their investment in our serfdom.
Ask the person making $12/ hr if they think $100 grand is a crap-load of money.
I did ask him, but 'he no speak Engrish.'
Location matters much. $100,000 is sufficient for a reasonable life, even a great life. NOT rich though unless of course you go global and consider that even 'poor' Americans still have it made on a relative basis.
Not to worry though, prezzie obozo is fixin' that.
Lowest common denominator is all part of the globalist pic.
When you are looking up from the bottom, $99k is rich...
Why are they considering people that make over 99K a year the 1%?
The 1% make tens of millions a year.
You can't have REAL class envy until you break it down to "That guy has a car and I have to take the bus!"
Thus, "the rich" will become $40k and up ;-)
"You can't have REAL class envy until you break it down to "That guy has a car and I have to take the bus!"
I don't know this guy Jim quinn, but from this article it seems he has a definite progressive agenda.
I dunno, he goes back & forth sometimes.
I do know, there shouldn't be a tax/regulatory system in place that gives advantage to the already well off to outpace/outmaneuver the up & comers, while at the same time makes it easier for the up & comers to just say screw it...I'll take the bus and the EBT card being offered.
All that does is build a permanent Disadvantaged Class, to be coddled & stroked by the Political Class, as long as the Advantaged Class pays the toll, which they happily do, the Disadvantaged Class is satisfied for a time.
It should be straight across the board, ten percent of a billion is still more than ten percent of a million and right on down the line.
That is, unless we're gonna start killing each other over it again while the real culprits slip away.
But hey, thats life ;-)
The March of Tyranny
Left! Right! Left! Right...
There's a lot of truth in that Dis, sometimes its not that complicated at all. And sometimes its moar complicated than it needs to be.
Chart #3...
http://www.zanebenefits.com/blog/bid/257632/3-Charts-to-Help-You-Navigate-Health-Care-Reform
"I don't know this guy Jim quinn, but from this article it seems he has a definite progressive agenda."
Seriously? I think you meant Progresso.
I envy the dudes that get the 0% loans and big chunks of the 850B per month. Man, those guys are KILLING IT!
what are they, the .00000001%?
Did they up QE by a multiple of 10?
anyway, your point is bang on.
EXACTLY!!
Eventually, it gets to: "You have something I want. Gimme - now!"
The current state of class propaganda led by Chinese citizenism has reached a point of self destruction. Coming to negate obvious facts for hundreds of generations.
But what thesis? Another non sense thesis. The truly learned know that Chinese citizenism citizens only retain Mao's invisible dung hand.
Mao advocated public roadside decolonization. The current situation is a following of his points.
The State is certainly not the core of Chinese citizenism propaganda. The PR of C propagandic class is. Normal as they are the bulk of Chinese citizenism propagation and that Chinese citizenism citizens cannot bear to hear speaking of someone else than themselves.
Propagandic class insanitation leads to fantaisical propagation and fantaisical propagation sells better than a rational analysis. But hey, some wants to be at the top and are ready to lie for that.
You're not buying into the whole class struggle thingy either huh?
Heretic!...lol.
In NY you can barely make it on 99K. They really mean the 0.0001%.
correct.
As of 2004, the top 1% make $340,000/year or more.
And net worth has to figure in. If one has a trust fund or investments that pay 100k/year, one is rich, indeed. If one, or hus and wife, are pulling down 100k through salary, they pay lots more taxes, and they have to keep working to keep the money flowing.
$340,000/year on a tax return is any successful small business with less than 15 employees. That's not the elite by far, or what people think of as the elite 1%. That's why the 1% meme is really just leftist class struggle propaganda. The real elite don't pay any fucking taxes they redistribute the middle class taxes.
I know, I've seen that '1%' thing spun so many that it's ridiculous.
OK, its not the one percent its the .1, .01, or .001%, wherever the jump from where a IT guru or small business owner could actually make that much, and where the trust fund, country club, don't touch the principal crowd break is.
That's because the poor have it better then the middle class, at this point in America!!
If you want to see and feel rage and resentment, talk to the middle class, the poor have never had it better in this Country relative to history!
Americans were sold down the river A LONG TIME AGO.
Another good reason to HATE OBAMA
In 2008 he said he would unilaterally renegotiate nafta. FUCKIN LIAR.
In an interview with Fortune to be featured in the magazine's upcoming issue, the presumptive Democratic nominee backed off his harshest attacks on the free trade agreement and indicated he didn't want to unilaterally reopen negotiations on NAFTA.
"Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified," he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA "devastating" and "a big mistake," despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.
Obama: NAFTA not so bad after allhttp://money.cnn.com/2008/06/18/magazines/fortune/easton_obama.fortune/
http://screencast.com/t/CqApCHMd
that one was funny. perhaps a sign of what to come:
"The media storm began late last week after someone told Canadian and American news outlets that Obama advisers had tipped off Canadian diplomats that their promise to reopen NAFTA was just empty talk aimed at winning votes in Ohio."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/pm-denies-top-aide-leaked-obama-nafta-memo...
don't think this really can be classified as a "struggle" when the middle class is basically hog tied, oiled up, blonde folded and gagged....sodomized for decades, it's more of a serial raping in the basement of the Eccles Building with Bukkake Ben chanting
"it puts the lotion on it's skin".......
Best comment of the year
As long as more than half of voters receive government money and don't work, and 90% of the rest are economically ignorant and passive about their freedoms, the so-called two party system will keep the 1% in power for the forseeable future.
Blonde folded?? Doesn't sound too bad!
The sodomized part is a bit of a turn-off.
But maybe that's just me..
You meant rape in any given muslim country, of course.
France, circa 1789–1799, comes to mind.
I can only hope for a "headcount" like France.....
Wannabe Robespierres might want to consider his fate.
Shot people are guillotine immune.
not to be confused with a headfake fake...
When the mob controls the guillotine, not just the guilty end up headless.
"A number of historians note that as many as 40,000 accused prisoners may have been summarily executed without trial or died awaiting trial." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution
The French Revolution was followed immediately by Napoleon - arguably, the Hitler of his time: powers of an "emperor", multiple attempts to conquer Europe, Russian campaign, etc..
"In 1799, he staged a coup d'état and installed himself as First Consul; five years later the French Senate proclaimed him emperor" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Boneparte
Tearing everything down doesn't leave one with much at the end of the day.
Like Obama, Bush etc? Not all criminals are French!
Is where we are heading though. solid point D. Thanks.
TJ Donkey Show? Man, you must've stayed out after the trolley stopped running. Been there, done that.
Whose dentures do you think are those? Warren B? Evelyn de R?
The rich can enjoy their temporary comfort. Soon the wealth ladder will start canniblizing itself and people who used to be in the upper echelon will quickly find themselves sinking into the middle class and then lower. They seem to forget that in order to stay rich they must have people to buy their crap.
It's starting already.
"America Eats Its Young.
Who would sacrifice the great-grandsons and -daughters
....by sucking their brains until their ability to think was amputated
....in her neurotic attempt to be queen of the universe?
Who is this bitch?"
-- George Clinton, Funkadelic
No, they just need rents to exceed taxes and their consumption.
Which is why TPTB's end game is not large government, it's small government ... when you own everything you don't need to steal anything, when you own everything you don't need to sell anything. You rent out necessities for others to produce luxuries for you. The rebirth of feudalism.
I hate to tell ya. With Berstank at the helm, 99K a year just doesn't buy what it used to.
And, the few places around the country that do pay 99K a year are going to be extremely expensive to live in.
$99K? don't you mean $990K
4 years after the revolution
and the old kings execution
4 years after remember how
those portia took their final bow
String up every aristocrat
Out with the priests and let then live on their fat
Four years after we started fighting
Marat keeps up with his writing
Four years after the bastille fell
He still recalls the old battle yell
Down with all of the ruling class
Throw all the generals out on their ass
Why do they have the gold
Why do they have the power why why why why why
Do they have the friends at the top
Why do they have the jobs at the top
We've got nothing always had nothing
Nothing but holes and millions of them
Living in holes
Dying in holes
Holes in our bellies and
Holes in our clothes
Marat we're poor
And the poor stay poor
Marat don't make us wait any more
We want our rights and we don't care how
We want a revolution
Now
Four years he fought and he fought unafraid
Sniffing down traitors by traitors betrayed
Marat in the courtroom
Marat underground
Sometimes the otter and sometimes the hound
Fighting all the gentry and fighting every priest
The business man the bourgeois the military beast
Marat always ready to stifle every scheme
Of the sons of the ass licking dying regime
We've got new generals our leaders are new
They sit and they argue and all that they do
is sell their own colleagues
And ride upon their backs
Or jail them
Or break them
Or give them all the ax
Screaming in language that no one understand
Of the rights that we grab with our own bleeding hands
When we wiped out the bosses
And stormed threw the wall of the prison you told us would outlast us all
Marat we're poor
And the poor stay poor
Marat don't make us wait any more.
We want our rights and we don't care how
We want a revolution
Now
Poor old marat they hunt you down
The bloodhounds are sniffing all over the town
Just yesterday your printing press was smashed
Now their asking your home address
Poor old Marat in you we trust
You work till your eyes turn as red a rust
But while you write their on your track
The boots mount the staircase
The doors thrown back
Poor old Marat in you we trust
You work till your eyes turn as red a rust
Poor old marat we trust in you
Marat we're poor
And the poor stay poor
Marat don't make us wait any more
We want our rights and we don't care how
We want a revolution
Now
Luk 18:22
So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
Luk 18:23
But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich.
Luk 18:24
And when Jesus saw that he became very sorrowful, He said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!
Luk 18:25
“For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Luk 18:26
And those who heard it said, “Who then can be saved?”
Luk 18:27
But He said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”
Amen, Praise the Lawd.
You missed a key point two sentences earlier, which is who he was talking to. It's was Not a common man.
luke 18:18 "A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
A "ruler". He was talking to the political elite of the time. In modern comparison, he's talking to a Pelosi and what they in particular would have to do to enter heaven.
WilliamBanzal7 +100 on LIVE EVIL !! So true - WTF
Doing God's work - GS-DickinDaMuppets
And I would say that the future rich will be those that have a guillotine or the equivalent thereof.
"the rich have never felt more comfortable relative to the poor"
Must redistribute wealth!
Or what are you suggesting?
Defending George Soros, Buffet, Lloyd and Jamie again?
So ummm... gold went verticle at open then crashed back... anyone know what happened?
Just another day in the ghetto.
And his momma cried.
the usual?
BIS PM trader is back from a restroom break. Time to clear the chute and empty the stack of orders on Gold tonite !
In that cartoon, I see the huge set of teeth that the rich have being the symbol of their control over the powers of government.
Of course, that "1%" is an oversimplification. The crucial control over the powers of government manifested in the form of PRIVATE BANKS being legally allowed to make "money" out of nothing, as debts, while governments continued to force everyone else to continue to use that fiat money as their legal tender, such as to pay their taxes with. The crucial privilege that the ruling classes enjoy is the power to control the public money supply.
With that power they were able to leverage everything else. With that power, they were able to dominate every aspect of the economy, and all social institutions, by being able to dominate the funding of all those kinds of social activities. With the profit from that LEGALIZED financial fraud, they were able to reinvest in more frauds, by their runaway positive feedback of the funding of politics constantly enabling them to capture more and more control over the political processes, so that they are now pretty well immune to the application of the rule of law against them.
Although that cartoon is oversimplified, it does show what is going on, that the richest have control over the government, which enables them to eat first, and far more, than everyone else!
I have repeated my analysis of that situation in my comments upon the recent series of articles from George Washington on that topic:
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-09-26/stunning-truth-about-inequality-america
The Stunning Truth About Inequality In America
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-09-27/whos-who-prominent-economists-and-billionaire-investors-say-runaway-inequalit
Who's Who of Prominent Economists and Billionaire Investors
Say that Runaway Inequality Harms the Economy
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-09-28/government-largely-responsible-soaring-inequality
Government Is Largely Responsible for Soaring Inequality
Duplicate
Amen. The problem is that in this country, no one has the slightest idea what "rich" means. They think it's like being a Kardashian or something. The 1% are rap artists or managers of large companies or TV anchormen.
Folks, this is uniquely American nonsense: "Those with an income over $99,000 per year are the most comfortable they have been in 6 years while the lower incomes (below $40,000) have seen their comfort plunge to one-year lows."
Wealth is not based on income - has absolutely nothing to do with income. The $40ks fighting with the $99ks is a brawl on the slave deck of the good ship Oligarchy. It's as stupid as the Dem vs Rep nonsense. No one outside of the US confuses income with wealth. The high income red herring has been a glorious distraction offered by those who need to keep out of sight.
It continuously amazes me that Americans equate wealth with income. The brainwashing is complete. The real definition of wealth is that you no longer need income. Or maybe that's being "comfortable." The better definition might be, no one in your family ever need earn income.
Belive it or not, Jamie and Blanky are employees. They get paid a lot but they enter by ther servant's quarters. Despite their many minions, they too must bow and scrape. They benefitted hugely from the managerial revolution in which tassel-loafered proles got to sit in leather chairs but I would be surprised if they ever even met a real 1 percenter, aside from such self-made fellow-proles as Larry Ellison or Melinda Gates.
A journo, Michael Wolff, said that if you earn $1 million/yr, you can sustain a middle class lifestyle in Manhattan. I, Restcase, will say that if you earn $99k in mid-America, you can sustain a middle-class lifestyle. True? You know it!
p.s. Was listening to a rant against Merill Lynch and other such on the radio today. The rap on ML was they only want (and take) millionaire clients. Think about how many ML offices there are in the USA and how many clients are needed to sustain that. There are a lot of millionaires out there! And they are nowhere near 1 percenters - cannot even touch the hem of the garment. And note that ML defines millionaire by assets, not by income.
To drive this home, the ever-popular Ric Edelman, on his show, yesterday played a tape of one of his clients saying that he was a public school teacher who had accumulated $2 million. He was complaining about losing half of that in 2008. This guy was an ML millionaire, right?, but still so far out of the swim of the 1% that he had to cry on the shoulder of a mass-market advisor/talk show host.
Loser millionaires. We've got them. We've also got $1 million and up earners. You'd be surprised how many of those are losers too.
You need to think long and hard about the 1% club, the admission fee, and your chance of seeing one of these people on TV, in the street, or in the pages of your favorite tabloid. Ain't going to happen. Not even "millionaires" rate. And the taxman won't even have a taste of their shadows.
I greened you, but . . . Melinda Gates is self-made? (Even though you hung that one over the plate, I won't be crass.)
Melinda saw her chances and she took them.
So "rich" people are automatically evil or immoral because they EARN more money or HAVE more money than someone else? What's wrong with this picture?
The money is good. The aspiration to control or dominate is bad.
And yes, many rich are harmless recluses. I lived meters away from Beverly Farms some years ago. You would need SEAL teams to dig them out of their magnificent caves.
Can we stop the class warfare garbage? Stop feeling you're entitled to other peoples' property; you're not. The government takes by force, private enterprise does not. I support capitalism, I don't think private enterprise should be subsidized nor penalized by the State. If people succeed let them keep the fruits of their labor, if they fail they should not be bailed out. If you think the State should run around playing "equalizer" consider relocating to Greece or Argentina and have a nice life and leave the rest of us alone.
Argentina--a preview of the USA.
I think we're all on the same page here but some of us see people using money and influence to rig capitalism into its mutant form "crony capitalism." This is not necessarily a function of the wealthy - a lot of it is done by their servants at banks and corporations to maximize bonuses and shareholder value. Some of these "tweaks" are zero sum games in which you and I are the zeroes.
I feel I am entitled to my own property and labor and yet there are games being played that reduce bank or corporate costs in exchange for my picking up some tabs in the form of higher taxes. Just as Obama wants me to subsidize his favorite voters, I have local developers who want me to pay for certain road improvements. And so it goes.
Good sentiment, unfortunately our government through both parties ascension to the presidency have made it this way. This president has only through extrodinary Socialist skills made it accelerate far faster. All powerful federal Government here we come.
All I ask is for people, just people, not radical left or right to look carefully at government histories where Central Government becomes all powerful! Both sides create bad results!!
And where does this 'Capitalism' you speak of exist? You mean 'Crony Capitalism', of course. Those who profit from 'Crony Capitalism' do not deserve what 'wealth' they achieve becasue it is unjust gain made off of the illegitimate connections that 'Crony Capitalism' thrives on. You really think that 'rigging' a system to benefit those who control the system is an honest accumulation of wealth? If so, you are part of the problem.
can someone fire Money McBags so he can write on ZH again?
You talk about effect on sentiment. I think you meant ressentiment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ressentiment
Awhhh that doesn't show the cash only economy. Those fools in Washington D.C. don't have reliable statistics on the real world.
That is one reason things are so screwed up. They make centrally planned decisions on inaccurate information. The only things Washington D.C. is good at is wrecking things.
EVERYONE'S about to get a lot more uncomfortable
$99K in San Francisco or New York City makes you rich?
Where do the get this BS from?
All this inequality propaganda is just softening people up so that they can loot people's savings accounts like Cyprus. The lower the threshold for defining rich, the more money they can steal.
I think they mean 100K a month makes you happy and rich.
I make 104K a year and my wife 97K and believe me, we're not rich. We get by easy yes, but I'm not rich. Big difference.
Rich is: "Shall we buy another car this month? Why not? Let's just do it! And next month a boat!"
Rich is when you have 5 mil. in you savings account and 5 million in gold and silver at the bottom of your private lake.
With a 100K a year it's still pretty easy to blow it all without doing crazy stuff.
whoaa....wait a damn minute here....why does your wife make so much freaking money....the .gov says there is 'gender inequality' in pay....she needs to go into her office and tell them she needs to make no more than 78k per year....per .gov statistics....
HA! HA! What that picture fails to show is those under the middle class.....They get the droppings ;)
This cartoon shows nothing interesting about USA, while a lot about lefties.
They think economy is grabbing as much wealth as you can... which magically transfers from some kind of mysterious production (about which nobody cares) through oh so virtuous appropriation to a bunch of government programs that fall down "on the people" (hopefully to each depending on his needs...).
Middle class doesn't need a shower of goodies to reach them. They will be just fine, after the State stops looting them!
Only the middle class, with or without the State will find themselves swamped by foreigners who accept minimum wage for the same jobs. Consider that many Libertarians promote both open borders and dropping the minimum wage. Just because the State is bad, does not mean Libertarians are an alternative. The only people worth voting for are nationalists who will close borders and ban all competition that does not match the standards afforded to its own people.
the shower of goodies goes straight to wal mart, general dynamic, and jp morgan. the uber-wealthy are the ones "grabbing as much wealth as you can". defend the kleptocratic maggots at your own peril.
the poor can comfort themselves by watching the stock market
"net worth" is calculated by the sum total of assets which can be tabulated by the banks, assets which can be posted as collateral for a loan.
However, there are other kinds of assets, which can still be kept out of sight from the rapacious class.
Including, of course, gold and silver coins, but a lot of other things as well, which co not come with taxes tags and title .....
More Obamaphones and less homework should solve the problem.
I hope the 1% includes the people in gov't that enable the banksters, etc. (like Corzine) to starve the middle class.
This cannot be reversed; it must run its course.
"It goes as it goes now. The rest is Destiny"
Aeschylus
Not to pick on Bill or Warren - but can someone explain to me why - if they make $1 billion - or even $10 billion a year why that HURTS anyone else?
Income is not some pie that just gets divided between everyone - it is true that rich people expand the whole pie -
The net worth of the Forbes 400 - it is about $2 trillion - TAKE IT ALL and divide it up between everyone else -- its is around $5 thousand dollars each maybe 6 if you don't count illegals.
In a year would America be better off?
In case you are missing it - the result would be a reduction in capital investment and an increase in consumption.
If they made $10 billion by doing something useful and clever it would not be a problem, but when that $10,000,000,000 is made by people who have lobied governments to raise taxes at home while offshoring its own assets, then the competitiion has been won by a fraud. Micosoft is known to only pay less than 5% taxes in the UK, while it lobied for IR35 legislation that destroyed the better part of the contract programming market. Bill Gates got rich because he made everyone else poorer.
That is partially true. But most of the wealthy have not gotten rich from lobbying the government. Remember, several companies and banks turned down government funding. Those that did had no restrictions on the use of those funds, and that's the government's fault. It's also the government's fault for not jailing some of those who abused the system.
I don't blame the wealthy. I blame the politicians who hand out favors and cash like candy.
So all the jobs & increased productivity that Microsoft help create hurt people - how?
What does a low tax rate have to do with anything? You think that the government can "invest" the profit generated better than a private company? REALLY?? Give me a few examples of current government programs that are efficient and effective. They have a worthy goal, meet the goal and don't over spend doing it.
I spent many years working around rich people - never met one that didn't earn it - and as a result created a lot of jobs and opportunities for other people. But will agree some of their kids didn't earn it and just took the free ride.
We can't all work for the government.
The cost of incorporation in a tax haven is typically many thousands of dollars a year. It is designed to exclude small businesses and individuals. If it were available to everyone then tax revenues would collapse and governments forced to act against tax havens. It only works as a rich-man's club. Therefore Microsoft pay low taxes and small business competitors end up paying Microsoft's share. The rich lobby for higher taxes that they do not pay themselves. That stinks.
I remain confused by this focus on income inequality.
Like poker, if all the money winds up in the hands of one person or a small group of people, then the game ends. But this has never happened, though it has ONLY come close in mercantilist societies. The reason it occurs in those societies is because of a dysfunctional belief that each exchange is a gain for one and a loss for another.
Carl Menger disabused us of this notion, as each exchange has a value to those engaging in the exchange and the remorse on one side or the other comes afterward when the trade is determined to have been poorly thought out on the part of one side. But most trades do not end in remorse, and rather benefit all involved in some meaningful way.
Income inequality might mean something to me if the people at the top in 1980 (when I was in college) were the same today as they were then. But they aren't. With Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg up there, it seems that mobility among the ranks is meaningful.
Also meaningful is that while the 1% have improved their position significantly, the top 20% have not. In fact, each quintile of income is roughly in the same place they've been for a rather long time.
Also meaningful, to me, is the fact that while my income has stagnated over the last 17 years, my standard of living has improved dramatically. Not by a little, but by quite a bit. In 1996, I did not have a laptop, I did not have a cellphone, I did not have 2 flat screen TVs, my kids didn't have XBox or Netflix, and my savings was $X. Today, each family member has a laptop, we all have an iPhone, we have 2 flat screens, with XBox and Netflix, and my savings is $5X (5 times larger). More interestingly, my house is larger, my utilities are lower and my debt is.....exactly the same!
Tell me how this income inequality is meaningful to me? My income is solidly middle class for the New York area. While I have neighbors who are wealthier and belong to country clubs and go on 3 vacations a year, I do not. I hate country clubs and I only take 1 vacation a year. Am I unhappy because of this? No. I don't have a lawn service, I like doing my own lawn and garden work. I belong to a gym now, and I didn't 17 years ago, have lost 30 lbs and am in better shape than ever.
And, yet, my household income is lower than it was 6 years ago. It's been roughly flat for 17 years, though it's actually lower since I spent 2 years (not consecutive) on unemployment.
Yet I'm living better.
I seem to think the lifestyle improvements are what are meaningful, not the inequality. Inequality is a statistic that provides support to an (often misguided) opinion, rather than a statistic that illuminates and enlightens.
I believe in equality of opportunity and not equality of outcome, which is clearly neither desirable nor attainable. I think opportunity is being eroded. But that is not the fault of the wealthy - that is the fault of the government.Silly cartoon. Let's see taxes/fees collected as percentage of household income. 2012 was a record year for taxes collected with record unemployment. The 1% can't regulate, tax, subsidize, or inflate the currency.
The 1% didn't snatch $20,000 in taxes out of my earnings last year, .gov did.
My guess is that if you make $101k in New York city, you're probably not as well off as someone living in Austin Texas who makes $90k, or someone living in Tulsa Oklahoma making $70k. Meanwhile, this metric treats them all equal.