Economic Inequality: The Greatest Conflict in US Society Today.

[georgephillip]

Agreed.

Republicans AND Democrats serve the 1%.
Obama's election year populism is no more sincere than Newt's.
Maybe it's time to stop "choosing" between Republican OR Democrat in the voting booth?

 

[georgephillip]

There is no such thing as "share" of income.
Where did the figure of $49,065 come from? What does it mean?
Anyone can throw out numbers with impunity to support a particular point of view.

Assuming you believe in the existence of "income":

The median income divides households in the US evenly in the middle with half of all household earning more than the median income and half of all households earning less than the median household income."

There is such a thing as a "share" of the total income earned by every working American each year.
In 1973 half of all working Americans earned more than $49, 065 and half earned less.
The richest 1% of Americans earned about 8% of total US income at that time.

In 2007 they earned about 23.8% of total US income which was approximately the same percentage the 1% earned in 1928.

Do you thinks it's coincidental that each of those two latter years immediately preceded major economic downturns?

Household income in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is no "share".. For there to be a "share", that would require the existence of something finite.
Because wealth is created and never stagnant, wealth grows. Therefore no "share" can be defined.
You people on the political left hold on to the notion of the zero sum game. That is a fantasy that you must deal with on your own. The rest of us are not concerned with said fantasy

Are the rest of you aware of the difference between income and wealth?

 

[thereisnospoon]

Assuming you believe in the existence of "income":

The median income divides households in the US evenly in the middle with half of all household earning more than the median income and half of all households earning less than the median household income."

There is such a thing as a "share" of the total income earned by every working American each year.
In 1973 half of all working Americans earned more than $49, 065 and half earned less.
The richest 1% of Americans earned about 8% of total US income at that time.

In 2007 they earned about 23.8% of total US income which was approximately the same percentage the 1% earned in 1928.

Do you thinks it's coincidental that each of those two latter years immediately preceded major economic downturns?

Household income in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is no "share".. For there to be a "share", that would require the existence of something finite.
Because wealth is created and never stagnant, wealth grows. Therefore no "share" can be defined.
You people on the political left hold on to the notion of the zero sum game. That is a fantasy that you must deal with on your own. The rest of us are not concerned with said fantasy

Are the rest of you aware of the difference between income and wealth?

The question is irrelevant because the pro high tax big government people do not make any distinction between the two.
Their enemy is anyone who lives in a home larger than is politically correct.

 

[georgephillip]

Each individual earns a finite amount of income every year.
Total US income is found by summing the amounts earned by every working American.
In 1973 the 1% earned around 8% of total US income.
In 2007 they earned 23.8% of total US income.
That much money concentrated at the top of the economic pyramid guarantees big government.
The solution is to build a wall of separation between private wealth and the state.

 

[Againsheila]

How about you dumb leftists crack open an intro to microeconomics book and learn about equilibrium prices and supply/demand for unskilled workers instead of crying to yourselves about how unfair the world is.

Had our borders been protected since the 1970's we would now have a very high minimum wage as unskilled labor would be at a premium. American's have limited their birthrate to less than replacement value, this means without all that immigration, there would be few low skilled workers and they would be in great demand. Our income gap would have decreased naturally. Yeah, I took microeconomics, it was exceeded in boredom only by my macroeconomics class.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Each individual earns a finite amount of income every year.
Total US income is found by summing the amounts earned by every working American.
In 1973 the 1% earned around 8% of total US income.
In 2007 they earned 23.8% of total US income.
That much money concentrated at the top of the economic pyramid guarantees big government.
The solution is to build a wall of separation between private wealth and the state.

in the early part of the 20th century most of the nation's wealth was in the hands of less than 20 people. These were known as "Robber Barons"...
Your point is...?
Nice spin on the "finite income" thing. That doggy will not hunt.

 

[georgephillip]

My annual income is finite.
What about yours?(check your W-2)

The 1%'s 2007 share of 23.8% of total income was matched only once before and that was 1928.

Do 1929 and 2008 have doggies in this hunt?

 

[thereisnospoon]

My annual income is finite.
What about yours?(check your W-2)

The 1%'s 2007 share of 23.8% of total income was matched only once before and that was 1928.

Do 1929 and 2008 have doggies in this hunt?

Unless you are on a fixed income via social security or public assistance, your income is finite by choice.
I don't want to hear it.
This is the land of opportunity. Take advantage of it.

 

[georgephillip]

The amount of money you report every year to the IRS is a finite number.

 

[thereisnospoon]

My annual income is finite.
What about yours?(check your W-2)

The 1%'s 2007 share of 23.8% of total income was matched only once before and that was 1928.

Do 1929 and 2008 have doggies in this hunt?

The Roaring Twenties

"By 1900, however, the U.S. had become the Gilded Age country of industrial princes and immigrants living in tenements of our political memory. On the one hand, Andrew Carnegie building the largest mansion in Newport, Rhode Island with gold water faucets. On the other hand, 146 largely-immigrant workers dying in the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Manhattan because the exits had been locked to keep workers from taking fabric out of the building for their own clothes.

Surveys suggest that in 1929 the richest one percent of U.S. households held something like 45 percent of national wealth, and that the concentration of wealth had been sharply rising in the 1920s. We strongly suspect that World War I had seen substantial deconcentration, as infiation eroded the value of bondholders' wealth and as high demand for labor boosted workers' earnings. It is my guess that the second was stronger than the first; that the concentration of wealth was eroded more during World War I than it was boosted in the 1920s, and that the concentration of wealth in the United States peaked sometime in the twenty years before World War I, with the richest one percent of households owning some 50% or so of total national wealth."

The fact that there were few if any regulations on finance or markets, the limited number of wealthy people vs others was almost criminal.
The stock market crash was more or less a natural correction.
Unfortunately, where as people today are far more sophisticated, such a Depression where even the rich became destitute is unlikely.
So unlikely it would be detrimental to the economy for the government to step in with draconian regulations and confiscatory taxes desired by the Obama administration.
Forget it.

 

[Chris]

 

[thereisnospoon]

Nobody cares except you greedy envious libs.

 

[georgephillip]

Which still places us several notches above deregulatory YOYOs ("you're on your own") who still haven't explained how exactly "trickle down" is supposed to stimulate economic growth in an economy that's 70% dependent on strong middle class consumer spending.

Trickle down does seem to guarantee increasing income inequality which leads to political decisions that produce less growth since the 1% will form coalitions to influence policy decisions in ways less likely the promote middle class well-being and more likely to favor those with disproportionate power and resources.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center about two-thirds of Americans now believe there are "strong conflicts" between rich and poor in the US. That share represents a 50 percent increase from a 2009 survey in which 47% of those polled said there were strong conflicts between economic classes.

For the first time conflict between rich and poor eclipsed tensions over race and immigration in the survey which polled 2,048 adults between December 6 to December 19.

"Independents, whose votes will be fought over by both parties, showed the single largest increase in perceptions of conflicts between rich and poor, up 23 percentage points, to 68 percent, compared with an 18-point rise among Democrats and a 17-point rise for Republicans.

"Sixty-eight percent of independents believe there are strong class conflicts, just below the 73 percent of Democrats who do. (The survey’s margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points for results based on the total sample.)

“'The story for me was the consistency of the change,'... 'Everyone sees more conflict.'”

Occupy That!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/us/more-conflict-seen-between-rich-and-poor-survey-finds.html

Economic Inequality: The Greatest Manufactured Conflict in US Society Today

 

[georgephillip]

Manufactured by the 1%.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Manufactured by the 1%.

Well, statistically I don't know what percentage of the populations Progressives make up. But it isn't no coincidink that which each new progressive program, more Americans drop out, allowing themselves to become wards of the state. Those of us who prepared for life, worked hard for the most part are doing just fine. The OWS'rs are the 1%rs.

 

[georgephillip]

Manufactured by the 1%.

Well, statistically I don't know what percentage of the populations Progressives make up. But it isn't no coincidink that which each new progressive program, more Americans drop out, allowing themselves to become wards of the state. Those of us who prepared for life, worked hard for the most part are doing just fine. The OWS'rs are the 1%rs.

"The trickle-down, deregulatory agenda—what I have called YOYO, or 'you’re on your own' economics—presumes that the growth chain starts at the top of the wealth scale and 'trickles down' to those at the middle and the bottom of that scale.

"Problem is, that’s not worked.

"Here’s a better model.

"In the midst of the 1990s boom, which lifted the earnings and incomes of middle and low-wage workers much more so than the 1980s or 2000s cycles, Larry Mishel and I started talking about 'wage-led demand growth.'

"We meant that a much better way to generate robust, lasting, and broadly shared growth is through an economically strengthened middle class."

Do you see any evidence the middle class is being strengthened?

Inequality, the Middle Class, and Growth | Jared Bernstein | On the Economy

 

[Chris]

Nobody cares except you greedy envious libs.

Nice try.

But you can't insult your way our of this one.

 

[georgephillip]

"Despite recent regulatory crackdowns on payday lending in seven states, the payday loan business is flourishing in states with weaker consumer protections. In recent years the major payday lenders have achieved record profits from this form of high-cost, small-dollar loans targeting subprime borrowers.

"While much of the economy is credit-starved, the nation’s major banks continue to provide the payday loan industry with capital to issue millions of usurious and predatory loans.

"The result is that every year billions of dollars are paid by the working-poor and other cash-strapped borrowers in excessive fees on payday loans."

http://www.npa-us.org/files/profiting_from_poverty_npa_payday_loan_report_jan_2012_0.pdf

 

[Skull Pilot]

People wouldn't need payday loans if they simply lived within their means.