America's Rampant Inequality

Please explain how the elite are getting wealthy "at the expense of the vast majority"?

What exactly did this rich people take from us? What did they take from you?
Let me count the ways.

Outsourcing millions of middle class jobs to slave-wage states like RedChina, Inc.
Bribing Republicans AND Democrats to shift the burden of taxation off unearned income.
Bribing the same politicians to engage in (at least) two unnecessary wars...

"What exactly did the rich people take from us?"

Virtually all of the productivity gains the US economy has seen since 1970.
The rich have stolen enough of those collective gains to produce a state where one in seven Americans and 25% of US children now live in poverty. They've stolen enough money so that the current annual average family income for the bottom 90% of Americans is $31,244, while the average income of the top 0.01 is over $27 million.

"What did they take from you"?

My share of productivity gains, for starters.
Since I earned less during my working years, my current SSA benefit is significantly less than it would have been had US workers shared in rising GDP at the same levels they did decades ago.

Many of the rich don't earn their money.
They bribe politicians to steal it.

What utter bullshit. How exactly can a business steal your productivity? I can tell you someone that CAN steal your productivity, though, THE GOVERNMENT, through labor regulations. How can someone else make you unable to produce as much as you did before? Corporate American hasn't outsourced jobs due to cheap labor. They outsource it because it was YOU, the laborer that became less productive. It isn't about how cheap you are labor wise. It's about how much value you produce. If someone overseas can be paid $5/hr and can produce $10 worth of goods vs. an american that has to be paid $10/hr, but can produce $20 worth of goods, whom am I going to hire?

All you lefties think this gap is tied to corporate greed somehow, but can't fathom for a second that a government that increasingly provides for people what they used to provide for themselves, might have something to do with the problem.
Stealing someones share of productivity gains is not stealing their productivity.

Compare this country with Germany since the mid 1970s.

The richest 1% of Germans earned 11% of their nation's total income in the 70s and they earn the same percentage today.

The richest 1% in the US earned around 8% of total income in the 70s and earn over 20% today.

If you would, provide a few more details as to why you would hire overseas labor at 5$ an hour to produce $10 worth of goods vs an American earning $10 an hour ($20,000/year) who produces $20 worth of goods?

Some of you righties can't comprehend the simple fact that a government that was answerable to all its citizens would not need to provide people with "what they used to provide for themselves."
 
I'm sure the progressives enjoy the elitists talking at them and not to them.

Anyone seen or read 1984.....
 
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"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

Yo George, study the life stories of Cornelius Vanderbilt , Steve Jobs etc.

Try to answer these questions:

1- did they stay home in order to type bullshit in a social network website?

2- did they stay home , impregnate their wives 10 times and then wait for a friendly politician to send them welfare checks?


IF IF IF you don't like being poor stop fucking around and learn a marketable skill.

.
Yo, Con...

Why don't you go for a nice picnic on Vieques?

"The United States Navy used Vieques, Puerto Rico for naval training and testing from 1941 to May 1, 2003.

Some current studies show drastic increases in health problems which may or may not be related to toxic materials left on Vieques from the Navy’s occupation.

"The people of Vieques demand the U.S. clean up the toxic materials they left behind, but the Navy argues that residents of Vieques have not been negatively affected by the 60-year occupation, and that data showing high cancer rates, high infant mortality, vibroacoustic disease, and radiation contamination is 'misguided' [1]..."

Be sure to take a giant US flag and a "Beat Army" banner.
Maybe some pictures of Steve and Cornie.

United States Navy in Vieques, Puerto Rico - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
"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

Yo George, study the life stories of Cornelius Vanderbilt , Steve Jobs etc.

Try to answer these questions:

1- did they stay home in order to type bullshit in a social network website?

2- did they stay home , impregnate their wives 10 times and then wait for a friendly politician to send them welfare checks?


IF IF IF you don't like being poor stop fucking around and learn a marketable skill.

.
Yo, Con...

Why don't you go for a nice picnic on Vieques?

"The United States Navy used Vieques, Puerto Rico for naval training and testing from 1941 to May 1, 2003.

Some current studies show drastic increases in health problems which may or may not be related to toxic materials left on Vieques from the Navy’s occupation.

"The people of Vieques demand the U.S. clean up the toxic materials they left behind, but the Navy argues that residents of Vieques have not been negatively affected by the 60-year occupation, and that data showing high cancer rates, high infant mortality, vibroacoustic disease, and radiation contamination is 'misguided' [1]..."

Be sure to take a giant US flag and a "Beat Army" banner.
Maybe some pictures of Steve and Cornie.

United States Navy in Vieques, Puerto Rico - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And some studies showed that progrssivism er those who support socialism is merely nothing more than Peter Pan Syndrome......
 
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The ZERO SUM GAME myth
People like to remind us that the marco economy is not a finite pie to be divided.


To some extent this argument does make sense, of course.

However that is really acknowledging only part of the economic reality of modern capitalism.

When income and wealth become distorted in the way it is becoming, then the economy does become a kind of ZERO SUM GAME.

How?

Investments. Those with the dough have the cash to invest and those with no dough do not.

So what we see (and are seeing right now) is that the investment class continues to divide that macroeconomic pie amongst itself while the working classes do copntinue to own a lesser and lesser part of the macroeconomy.

The bottom 50% of the population now owns only 2.5% of the wealth in this nation. That is, I am informed a total amount worth only about $700 billion dollars.

That's their WEALTH not their annual incomes.

THAT has got to change if we want to continue to live in anything remotely approaching a democratic republic, folks.

When people have no vested interest in the nation because they own nothing?

Well...people with nothing have nothing to lose.








That's what Maestro was saying on Meet the Press lately.

Greenspan pointed out how, in the wake of our Great Recession, high-income individuals,large banks and major corporations have enjoyed a "significant recovery" that's not the case for many small businesses and "a very significant amount of the labor force."

I would take it one step further and argue those who've recovered from the last downturn have done so at the expense of those who haven't. Since we're currently dealing with a global market place, corporations no longer have to consider "the US consumer" or "the UK consumer" but only the rich consumers found in every country.

While the rich are few in number they hoard a gigantic slice of income and consumption.
And they always want more.
 

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