America's Rampant Inequality

[georgephillip]

"The CIA ranks the country 64th, behind Ivory Coast and Uganda—but Fox's banshees still scream 'class warfare' when Warren Buffet wants to tax the rich

"For years, America’s super-rich and their allies in Congress and the media have tried to deny that a tiny elite was growing astronomically wealthy at the expense of the vast majority of Americans.

"But the vast gaping canyon between the richest 1 percent and Corporate America, on the one hand, and the rest of us on the other, has become so large and well-documented that denial no longer works.

"The ideological combat gets especially intense when it turns to the relatively minimal taxes that corporations and the rich pay."

America

Ah YES! Lets all move to the "equal" Uganda....whoooooo hooooo....break out the Champagne!!!


OH wait..."equality" in these countries mean most a "equally" POOR! OH well, break out the Champagne anyway......AmeriKa is evil....evil I tell ya!

Evil as the Nazis?

"Both in Nazi Germany and contemporary US, we are told by the mass media that the invading armies are 'freeing the country' of "foreign fighters" and 'armed terrorists', who are preventing 'the people' from going about their everyday lives.

"Yet we know that of the 1000 prisoners there are only four foreigners (three Iranians and one Arab); Iraqi hospitals report less than 10% of casualties are foreign fighters.

"In other words, over 90% of the fighters are Iraqis — most of whom were born, educated and raised families in the cities in which they are fighting."

IRAQ: Covering up US war crimes | Green Left Weekly

I blame it on champagne life styles.

 

[georgephillip]

"The CIA ranks the country 64th, behind Ivory Coast and Uganda—but Fox's banshees still scream 'class warfare' when Warren Buffet wants to tax the rich

"For years, America’s super-rich and their allies in Congress and the media have tried to deny that a tiny elite was growing astronomically wealthy at the expense of the vast majority of Americans.

"But the vast gaping canyon between the richest 1 percent and Corporate America, on the one hand, and the rest of us on the other, has become so large and well-documented that denial no longer works.

"The ideological combat gets especially intense when it turns to the relatively minimal taxes that corporations and the rich pay."

America

America's rampant inequality is due to American's rampant ignorance, laziness, and an unwillingness to admit that they are responsible for their own current situation in life.

What are American's most ignorant of?

"Let's set the stage.

"Thanks to the 'trickle down' policies of Reagan and Bush all the income gains in recent decades have gone to the top few. One in seven Americans and 25% of our children now live in poverty. (43% of our children are 'at risk.')

"The average family income for 'the bottom' 90% of us is $31,244, while the average income of the top .01% is over $27 MILLION. Per year, each year.

"The average income of the richest 400 Americans was $227.4 million -- and those 400 hold more wealth than the 'bottom' 50% of Americans combined. Etc., etc. (I don't have to write about how many are unemployed, do I?)

Rich Guy "Deeply Resents" Helping Pay for Democracy | Truthout

Some Americans are lazy and unwilling to accept personal responsibility for their choices.
That doesn't mean they haven't been cheated out of their share of rising productivity gains over the past four decades.

 

[georgephillip]

Travel to Korea, Mexico, Cambodia, Laos, China and then get back to us on inequalities. This country can't even begin to understand what inequality really means.

"While developed European nations and Canada tend to have Gini indices between 0.24 and 0.36, the United States' and Mexico's Gini indices are both above 0.40, indicating that the United States (according to the US Census Bureau[6][7][8]) and Mexico have greater inequality..."

Gini coefficient - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The one in seven Americans and 25% of US children currently living in poverty are beginning to get a clue about inequality.

Why aren't you?

Because I've traveled to third world holes and have seen real rampant inequalities. I have traveled to 49 states here in the US and have seen nothing compared to the gross atrocities abroad.

Which direction is the US headed?
Toward greater or lessor income inequality?

 

[WillowTree]

"The CIA ranks the country 64th, behind Ivory Coast and Uganda—but Fox's banshees still scream 'class warfare' when Warren Buffet wants to tax the rich

"For years, America’s super-rich and their allies in Congress and the media have tried to deny that a tiny elite was growing astronomically wealthy at the expense of the vast majority of Americans.

"But the vast gaping canyon between the richest 1 percent and Corporate America, on the one hand, and the rest of us on the other, has become so large and well-documented that denial no longer works.

"The ideological combat gets especially intense when it turns to the relatively minimal taxes that corporations and the rich pay."

America

And, you know what obiedoodle's best bud did about that? Ya know? the one he appointed to get jobs for Americans?? Ya know what he did? That's right,, he shipped jobs to CHINA.. so cry us a fucking river whydonchya?

 

[georgephillip]

Is this one of those "Life is not fair" threads ?

This is one of those "crime is not fair" threads.

" One in seven Americans and 25% of our children now live in poverty. (43% of our children are 'at risk.') The average family income for 'the bottom' 90% of us is $31,244, while the average income of the top .01% is over $27 MILLION. Per year, each year. The average income of the richest 400 Americans was $227.4 million -- and those 400 hold more wealth than the bottom' 50% of Americans combined.'"

Rich Guy "Deeply Resents" Helping Pay for Democracy | Truthout

 

[martybegan]

Is this one of those "Life is not fair" threads ?

This is one of those "crime is not fair" threads.

" One in seven Americans and 25% of our children now live in poverty. (43% of our children are 'at risk.') The average family income for 'the bottom' 90% of us is $31,244, while the average income of the top .01% is over $27 MILLION. Per year, each year. The average income of the richest 400 Americans was $227.4 million -- and those 400 hold more wealth than the bottom' 50% of Americans combined.'"

Rich Guy "Deeply Resents" Helping Pay for Democracy | Truthout

Then try and convict them, each and every single person you think owes you something.

Oh wait, 99.99% of them havent actually done a real crime. The only "crime" is in your jealous mind, because obviously YOU deserve the stuff they have.

 

[Wacky Quacky]

"The CIA ranks the country 64th, behind Ivory Coast and Uganda—but Fox's banshees still scream 'class warfare' when Warren Buffet wants to tax the rich

"For years, America’s super-rich and their allies in Congress and the media have tried to deny that a tiny elite was growing astronomically wealthy at the expense of the vast majority of Americans.

"But the vast gaping canyon between the richest 1 percent and Corporate America, on the one hand, and the rest of us on the other, has become so large and well-documented that denial no longer works.

"The ideological combat gets especially intense when it turns to the relatively minimal taxes that corporations and the rich pay."

America

America's rampant inequality is due to American's rampant ignorance, laziness, and an unwillingness to admit that they are responsible for their own current situation in life.

What are American's most ignorant of?

"Let's set the stage.

"Thanks to the 'trickle down' policies of Reagan and Bush all the income gains in recent decades have gone to the top few. One in seven Americans and 25% of our children now live in poverty. (43% of our children are 'at risk.')

"The average family income for 'the bottom' 90% of us is $31,244, while the average income of the top .01% is over $27 MILLION. Per year, each year.

"The average income of the richest 400 Americans was $227.4 million -- and those 400 hold more wealth than the 'bottom' 50% of Americans combined. Etc., etc. (I don't have to write about how many are unemployed, do I?)

Rich Guy "Deeply Resents" Helping Pay for Democracy | Truthout

Some Americans are lazy and unwilling to accept personal responsibility for their choices.
That doesn't mean they haven't been cheated out of their share of rising productivity gains over the past four decades.

And there is nothing stopping them from getting a better education and aspiring to be something more than a Wal-Mart greeter. They have every opportunity in the world to make it big in this country, but instead they sit around not doing anything about their situation while blaming "evil corporations" for not paying them enough. Get off your lazy ass, get an education, have a good idea, and you will BECOME one of those rich that you hate so much.

You keep bringing up how much more CEOs and the like are making compared to the average working man, well that's because those CEOs put in the leg work to start a major corporation that's employing thousands upon thousands of people. Making a lot of money was their incentive to start that major corporation that ended up employing so many people. If a smart businessman knew that if they started a major corporation and all they would make was the minimum wage, they wouldn't bother. And that means no jobs were created.

There SHOULD be a huge gap in pay between a menial laborer that's doing a job any bum off the street can do, and the CEO of a Fortune 500 business.

 

[georgephillip]

Geez, is the socialist blog "common dreams" still around? Maybe Soros is funding it. Hey phil, Stalin had your kind of government. Everyone was equal in Russia. Chairman Mao decreed that everyone was equal in China except the elite who were more equal. In the land of the free and the home of the brave anyone can get rich if you have the smarts and the drive or you can float along in a single wide. The choice is yours. Would the radical left have it any other way?

Hey, Whitehall!

Chomsky has my kind of government.
Before you worry too much about Stalin and Mao, maybe you should ask a former high priest of capitalism what kind of government he sees in our future?

"What made the argument( two diverging Americas) striking in this instance was that it was being offered by none other than the former five-term Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan: iconic libertarian, preeminent defender of the free market, and (at least until recently) the nation’s foremost devotee of Ayn Rand.

"When the high priest of capitalism himself is declaring the growth in economic inequality a national crisis, something has gone very, very wrong.

"This widening gap between the rich and non-rich has been evident for years. In a 2005 report to investors, for instance, three analysts at Citigroup advised that 'the World is dividing into two blocs—the Plutonomy and the rest'”:

"'In a plutonomy there is no such animal as 'the U.S. consumer' or 'the UK consumer', or indeed the 'Russian consumer'. There are rich consumers, few in number, but disproportionate in the gigantic slice of income and consumption they take. There are the rest, the 'non-rich', the multitudinous many, but only accounting for surprisingly small bites of the national pie'".

The Rise of the New Global Elite - Magazine - The Atlantic

 

[georgephillip]

You liberals should just look at it as economic diversity

When you cons admit War is a Racket.

 

[editec]

Huge Economic desparity isn't evil just because it is unfair.

It is evil because it inevitably leads to the kind of feeble economy we have right now.

 

[Wacky Quacky]

Huge Economic desparity isn't evil just because it is unfair.

It is evil because it inevitably leads to the kind of feeble economy we have right now.

No, our economy is feeble because of:

A weak US dollar
Horrible trade policies
A tax system that rewards sending jobs and money OUT of the US
Not allowing bad businesses to fail when they fuck up
And probably some more things I can't think of off the top of my head

 

[martybegan]

Huge Economic desparity isn't evil just because it is unfair.

It is evil because it inevitably leads to the kind of feeble economy we have right now.

That would only be true for a zero sum economy, where inputs to one area lead to debits in another.

In an expansive economy (overall, not just cyclical) wealth and infrastructure is created, thus increasing the overall pool. At that point even if the rich get richer quicker, everyone in general increases, if not in absolute monetary terms, than in either purchasing power or technological level.

 

[koshergrl]

"The CIA ranks the country 64th, behind Ivory Coast and Uganda..."

How about the Atlantic?

"If you happened to be watching NBC on the first Sunday morning in August last summer, you would have seen something curious. There, on the set of Meet the Press, the host, David Gregory, was interviewing a guest who made a forceful case that the U.S. economy had become 'very distorted.'

"In the wake of the recession, this guest explained, high-income individuals, large banks, and major corporations had experienced a 'significant recovery'; the rest of the economy, by contrast—including small businesses and 'a very significant amount of the labor force'—was stuck and still struggling.

"What we were seeing, he argued, was not a single economy at all, but rather 'fundamentally two separate types of economy,' increasingly distinct and divergent."

The Rise of the New Global Elite - Magazine - The Atlantic"

Have you personally noticed any evidence of distortion in the US economy recently?
How about divergence?

All this, of course, ignores the fact that the bottom 10% in the US would be in the 99th percentile in places like Uganda and the Ivory coast.

Our poor have Cell phones and can eat fast food every day, you can't say that about even the Ugandan upper middle class.

Just as you ignore the fact that millions of middle class Americans have seen their wages (and entitlement benefits) flat line since the '70s in order for the richest 1% of Americans to increase their share of annual US income from 8% then to over 20% today.

Our homeless have cell phones and eat fast food (out of dumpsters) every day.
Does that mean the rich in this country deserve a bigger slice of the pie?
Because they obviously think so.

The mid 70s..that would be when liberals in this country started to shut down industry, slap punishing strictures on farmers and landowners who would like to develop their own land...closed off the forests....adopted a federal minimum wage.....

Yeah, we're getting poorer because of the RIGHT WING.

 

[georgephillip]

Huge Economic desparity isn't evil just because it is unfair.

It is evil because it inevitably leads to the kind of feeble economy we have right now.

And for the sense of entitlement/victimization it breeds among the rich.

"They say that extreme inequality causes even the very rich to feel poor.

"They look upwards and feel inferior. They don't look down; We, the People are literally invisible and meaningless in their lives. They look up and see vast extremes, and feel like they are missing out. And they feel resentful."

Think how the majority feels.

Rich Guy "Deeply Resents" Helping Pay for Democracy | Truthout

 

[georgephillip]

"The CIA ranks the country 64th, behind Ivory Coast and Uganda—but Fox's banshees still scream 'class warfare' when Warren Buffet wants to tax the rich

"For years, America’s super-rich and their allies in Congress and the media have tried to deny that a tiny elite was growing astronomically wealthy at the expense of the vast majority of Americans.

"But the vast gaping canyon between the richest 1 percent and Corporate America, on the one hand, and the rest of us on the other, has become so large and well-documented that denial no longer works.

"The ideological combat gets especially intense when it turns to the relatively minimal taxes that corporations and the rich pay."

America

And, you know what obiedoodle's best bud did about that? Ya know? the one he appointed to get jobs for Americans?? Ya know what he did? That's right,, he shipped jobs to CHINA.. so cry us a fucking river whydonchya?

If Obama and his jobs Czar finish their miserable lives in a supermax SHU, we are all one giant step closer to freedom that actually means something, imho. Why aren't conservatives willing to say the same about their corporate criminals?

 

[georgephillip]

Is this one of those "Life is not fair" threads ?

This is one of those "crime is not fair" threads.

" One in seven Americans and 25% of our children now live in poverty. (43% of our children are 'at risk.') The average family income for 'the bottom' 90% of us is $31,244, while the average income of the top .01% is over $27 MILLION. Per year, each year. The average income of the richest 400 Americans was $227.4 million -- and those 400 hold more wealth than the bottom' 50% of Americans combined.'"

Rich Guy "Deeply Resents" Helping Pay for Democracy | Truthout

Then try and convict them, each and every single person you think owes you something.

Oh wait, 99.99% of them havent actually done a real crime. The only "crime" is in your jealous mind, because obviously YOU deserve the stuff they have.

Have you forgotten the recent crime wave on Wall Street?

The one that relied on taxpayer-supplied bailouts to make the banks whole again.
The same bailouts that nearly doubled the richest 5% of Americans share of returns to wealth in less than one generation?

Are you saying 99.99% of Obama's "savvy businessmen" on Wall Street did not engage in real accounting control fraud?

Why do you think like a slave?
Do you work in Finance?

 

[martybegan]

This is one of those "crime is not fair" threads.

" One in seven Americans and 25% of our children now live in poverty. (43% of our children are 'at risk.') The average family income for 'the bottom' 90% of us is $31,244, while the average income of the top .01% is over $27 MILLION. Per year, each year. The average income of the richest 400 Americans was $227.4 million -- and those 400 hold more wealth than the bottom' 50% of Americans combined.'"

Rich Guy "Deeply Resents" Helping Pay for Democracy | Truthout

Then try and convict them, each and every single person you think owes you something.

Oh wait, 99.99% of them havent actually done a real crime. The only "crime" is in your jealous mind, because obviously YOU deserve the stuff they have.

Have you forgotten the recent crime wave on Wall Street?

The one that relied on taxpayer-supplied bailouts to make the banks whole again.
The same bailouts that nearly doubled the richest 5% of Americans share of returns to wealth in less than one generation?

Are you saying 99.99% of Obama's "savvy businessmen" on Wall Street did not engage in real accounting control fraud?

Why do you think like a slave?
Do you work in Finance?

THEN GET OFF YOUR ASS AND GO TRY AND CONVICT THEM.

You think they are all criminals, file a criminal complaint, unless of course it is all in your head.

I love the "think like a slave" stuff. Having to rationalize someone having an opposite opinion of yours to be something other than the person disagreeing with you is the highest sign of a basic inability to understand anything that isn't spoon fed to you by the "outraged nut" de jour.

 

[georgephillip]

America's rampant inequality is due to American's rampant ignorance, laziness, and an unwillingness to admit that they are responsible for their own current situation in life.

What are American's most ignorant of?

"Let's set the stage.

"Thanks to the 'trickle down' policies of Reagan and Bush all the income gains in recent decades have gone to the top few. One in seven Americans and 25% of our children now live in poverty. (43% of our children are 'at risk.')

"The average family income for 'the bottom' 90% of us is $31,244, while the average income of the top .01% is over $27 MILLION. Per year, each year.

"The average income of the richest 400 Americans was $227.4 million -- and those 400 hold more wealth than the 'bottom' 50% of Americans combined. Etc., etc. (I don't have to write about how many are unemployed, do I?)

Rich Guy "Deeply Resents" Helping Pay for Democracy | Truthout

Some Americans are lazy and unwilling to accept personal responsibility for their choices.
That doesn't mean they haven't been cheated out of their share of rising productivity gains over the past four decades.

And there is nothing stopping them from getting a better education and aspiring to be something more than a Wal-Mart greeter. They have every opportunity in the world to make it big in this country, but instead they sit around not doing anything about their situation while blaming "evil corporations" for not paying them enough. Get off your lazy ass, get an education, have a good idea, and you will BECOME one of those rich that you hate so much.

You keep bringing up how much more CEOs and the like are making compared to the average working man, well that's because those CEOs put in the leg work to start a major corporation that's employing thousands upon thousands of people. Making a lot of money was their incentive to start that major corporation that ended up employing so many people. If a smart businessman knew that if they started a major corporation and all they would make was the minimum wage, they wouldn't bother. And that means no jobs were created.

There SHOULD be a huge gap in pay between a menial laborer that's doing a job any bum off the street can do, and the CEO of a Fortune 500 business.

How many current Fortune 500 CEOs founded the corporation they currently rule?

Does employing thousands and thousands of people in China lead to greater income mobility in this country or narrow the gap between the rich and the rest?

"Many studies have documented the long-term trend of increasing income inequality in the U.S. economy.

"U.S. Census data, for example, show that the share of household income of the top 20 percent of households increased from 44.1 percent in 1980 to 50.4 percent by 2005, with the share of the bottom 20 percent decreasing from 4.2 percent to 3.4 percent. (1)

"Similarly, Piketty and Saez (2003,2007) found that the share of income of the top 10 percent of taxpayers increased from 31.7 percent in 1960 to 44.3 percent in 2005, while the share of the top I percent increased from 8.4 percent to 17.4 percent.

"Economists have suggested a variety of factors as possible explanations for these trends, including increased returns to skill and education, greater globalization of labor markets, the decline in unionization, increased immigration, increased reporting due to reductions in income tax rates, and changes in the supply of highly educated workers."

Based on recent studies done before the Great Recession, income mobility is still alive and well in the US:

"Data from panels of individual income tax returns suggest that there was considerable income mobility in the U.S. economy over the 1987-1996 and 1996-2005 periods. Consistent with prior mobility studies, the data show that over half of taxpayers moved to a different income quintile and that roughly half of taxpayers who began in the bottom income quintile moved up to a higher income group by the end of each period.

"By contrast, those with the very highest incomes in the base year were more likely to drop to a lower income group and the median real income of these taxpayers declined in each period.

"Economic growth resulted in rising incomes for most taxpayers over both time periods. Initial position in the income distribution and changes in marital status were found to be associated with the largest upward or downward movements through the income distribution."

Income mobility in the United States: new evidence from income tax data. - Entrepreneur.com

 

[georgephillip]

All this, of course, ignores the fact that the bottom 10% in the US would be in the 99th percentile in places like Uganda and the Ivory coast.

Our poor have Cell phones and can eat fast food every day, you can't say that about even the Ugandan upper middle class.

Just as you ignore the fact that millions of middle class Americans have seen their wages (and entitlement benefits) flat line since the '70s in order for the richest 1% of Americans to increase their share of annual US income from 8% then to over 20% today.

Our homeless have cell phones and eat fast food (out of dumpsters) every day.
Does that mean the rich in this country deserve a bigger slice of the pie?
Because they obviously think so.

The mid 70s..that would be when liberals in this country started to shut down industry, slap punishing strictures on farmers and landowners who would like to develop their own land...closed off the forests....adopted a federal minimum wage.....

Yeah, we're getting poorer because of the RIGHT WING.

Liberals like Dick Nixon?

"On August 15, 1971, the United States unilaterally terminated convertibility of the dollar to gold. As a result, "[t]he Bretton Woods system officially ended and the dollar became fully 'fiat currency,' backed by nothing but the promise of the federal government."[1] This action, referred to as the Nixon shock, created the situation in which the United States dollar became the sole backing of currencies and a reserve currency for the member states."

Bretton Woods system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We're getting poorer because all politicians ("left" and right) depend on the richest 1% of Americans to fund their campaigns. Republicans AND Democrats need Wall Street everyday and Main Street one day every two years.

 

[koshergrl]

*yawn*

Another leftist history revamper.