top 5 % own more than half of the wealth

[Brutus]

My response is so what. I wish to be one of those 5% someday. Funny thing is most of these people you liberals demonize are likely liberals themselves. I tell you what, since you all believe spreading the wealth is a good idea. If every liberal inside that 5% gives back every cent each year to the point where they are only keeping the average US citizens income/year than ill be impressed. Until then your all hypocrites.

what amuses me is that,

1) liberals claims to be so sensitive and caring and yet they want to violently steal property from the wealthy at the point of a gun.

2) they imagine the some liberal make-work bureaucrat can spend money better than Gates and Buffet? How stupid!

3) the liberal does not know that about 70% of wealth in private hands is held in the form of business ownership. If you steal their money you steal your job too!

4) the liberals tried a super luxury tax. It killed the American yacht industry and all the middle class jobs that went with it. The libtards had to repeal it.

5) much wealth is simple stored in banks. Banks loan it out for productive purposes that can pay back the loan. This is how the economy grows. A libtard bureaucrat will waste the money on one shot welfare programs. Econ 101, but of course a liberal will not know Econ 101.

 

[sparky]

TM why do you hate people that provide jobs? Don't you want people to have jobs?

of course this begs the q, who provides employment in America Liberty


and that's where the stat's are easily confused, because someone will claim GM, or IBM creates the most employment , being in sheer numbers of employees

they'd be wrong, because the Federal Government is the biggest employer in America today

by some standards, this is seen as socialism vs. a true capitalist creation

that said, if you (et all) care to delve into the stats, (instead of forwarding insuations of the elites providing employment like manna floating down from celestial sources), here they are>


Statistics about Business Size from the Census Bureau

 

[william the wie]

You liberals do realize that you are imputing only 1.6% higher returns per 1.25 years at 36 years into a work history to become part of the top 5% with 50% of all assets? And that is assuming zero cultural advantages which does not seem to be your argument. So you are going ape over a barely perceptible difference in annual returns?

 

[jeffrockit]

http://epi.3cdn.net/002c5fc0fda0ae9cce_aem6idhp5.pdf



The wealthiest 1% of U.S. households had net worth that was 225 times greater than the median or typical household’s
net worth in 2009. This is the highest ratio on record.

And yet they pay almost 40% of the taxes while only earning 20% of the income.

These figures are from the Tax Foundation:
In 2000, for instance, the top 1 percent of income earners paid 37.42 percent of all income taxes collected. In 2008, they paid 38.02 percent. That's down a bit from the peak of 2007 and reflects the recession hitting. The bottom 50 percent of filers saw their share of the income tax burden fall from 3.91 percent to 2.7 percent.

Wealth envy is an ugly character trait.

 

[asterism]

BTW, Brutus, the only thing around here in double digits is your IQ. Why don't you move to Somalia so that the average IQ of the USA and Somalia can both increase? Here's a tid bit for you. During the 1990 presidential election, the average amount of college education by the attendees at the Democratic convention was 6 years, the average for the Republican convention was only 3.5 years. Look at your popular leaders and spokes people: Palin, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Joe the Plumber, Bush ll. Look at ours: Obama, the Clintons, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Polosi. Neither Bush11 nor Palin can parse a sentence, let alone construct one. Did you know that Limbaugh and Beck and Joe are all college dropouts? You are on very thin ice when talking about relative intelligence and knowledge.

Which President was elected in 1990? Did you just negate your own point about political ideology and intelligence? Yes, you did.

As for constructing sentences:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDJSVPAx8xc&feature=related]YouTube - Obama Speech - Teleprompter Goes Out[/ame]

Furthermoe, for the vast most part, the only people talking about class warfare are the wealthy and most of the right wingers. I personally don't advocate nor do I perceive a current class war. That is a scare tactic that the right wingers love to put out there. The problem is not the rich nor the wealthy, it is our economic system that is skewed in their financial favor. Most of the rich and wealthy are good citizens successfully able to take advantage of the skewed system. Only a few are bad people that use their influence and money and power and public presence to further the skewing of the bias in their favor. The other immoral parties are the politicians who do the skewing, both Republican and Democrat, and the vast majority of people who enable the skewing of the system are you dumb Republican voting, working class fools who insist on doing the wrong thing and vote against their own best interest. The top 15% own 85% of the country's wealth, the bottom 85% only own 15% of the wealth. There are alot of working class Republicans in that 85% working class group, they are just too stupid to realize it, like you.

How have the working class people voted for the Democrats in 2006 and 2008 made out?

U.S. Unemployment Varies Significantly Based on Income Levels - Seeking Alpha

How is voting for a plan that damages the economy more make sense?

 

[MitchMan]

the top 1% pay more than their fair share

The correct way to view the issue of of "fair share" in this context is to understand the share of benefit from the economy that the top 1% have received. For example, the average bottom 50% taxpayer has only $15,000 left over after paying their income tax liability, the average top 1% taxpayer has $923,000 left over. That means that the 1% taxpayer benefited over 61 times more than the 50% taxpayer ($923,000/$15,000), that's 6,100% more. Applying the same computation to the top 10% taxpayers, they receive well over 14 times more than the bottom 50% taxpayer, and that's at least 1,400% more.

Even that straight line assessment doesn't really tell the whole story of the magnitude of the economical imbalanced benefit. Since both taxpayers are humans, there are limitations to consumption required to sustain life. For example, just because the top 1% has 61 times more money, he/she doesn't eat (doesn't need) 61 times more food volume, can't drive (doesn't need) 61 times more cars (can't drive more than one car at a time), can't wear (doesn't need) 61 times more shoes at one time, can't live in (doesn't need) 61 times more homes at one time, can't wear (doesn't need) more than one Gucci watch at a time, etc., etc., etc. The % of the left over money that goes to things that sustain life maxes out fairly quickly, then the rest is fat, excess, and that excess is used to simply make more money for the 1% taxpayer in the next year, and that makes the disparate imbalance even worse. It is an unhealthy snowball effect that takes place over time in our biased economic system.

In contrast, the bottom 50% taxpayer has only $15,000 left over and that isn't enough to sustain life, that is subsistance. Top 1%, 61 times more benefit, bottom 50% at less than subsistance. I know that has no effect on your mind, your logic, your conscience, your sense of fair play, your sense of properly oriented perspective, of what works for the vast majority of the working class in this country.

For some inexplicable reason, you hard headed, myopicly minded, simplistic thinking right wing hobbits can't see the reality of the situation. You immorally refuse to see the real economic truth. You completely disregard and repeatedly refuse to acknowledge or address the fact that the bottom 50% taxpayers are in dire straits while a small minority of people, the wealthy, have gotten all the wealth that the economy has produced, to an excess far beyond what they can even come close to consuming. This has no effect on you block heads, you never acknowledge the actual disparity that exists.

If we were only talking about the bottom 5% as being in dire straits, and the top 70% of taxpayers as having a good excess, and the differential 25% being at a level slightly above subsistance, that would be almost palatable. But that isn't nearly the case, you immoral morons.

You really lose your credibility and show your true warped and flawed adversarial perspective when you acerbicly accuse the left of jealousy and envy at not having abundant wealth. You miss the point because you are evaluating based on your view of someone else's having wealth. We take issue with the disparity because of the concern over the plight of the majority of the working class.. The issue is deemed as an abomination because so much wealth has been created but inequitably finds its way into the pockets of the few at the top. We consider that as an unnecessary waste of wealth, since much of the wealth does not get into the pockets of the working class that earned it, created it, and needs it. We are concerned with the plight of the majority of the working class that is living at below subsistance. While you, on the other hand, could care less.

More to come when I have time. I am going to pick you block heads off, one at a time.

 

[william the wie]

Dear Mitch-man:

Your so-called analysis ignored numerous things such as:

Transfer payments.

Variations in cost of living by locale.

Variations in taxes by locale.

Someone making 50K in NYC is poor, someone making 50K in Jacksonville FL is doing OK, while someone making 50K in Camp Hill AL is doing quite well. location matters.

 

[MitchMan]

Willy, keep your eye on the big picture, then work backwards, not the other way around. For example, using your own figure of $50,000, just what proportion of the working class makes that much? You want to go to detail, what proportion of households make that, now what proportion of taxpayers make that? Now, once you answer that, what proportion of the USA population does your assertion apply to? Big picture perspective puts your argument to sleep.

Quantitatve perspective, Willy, try it sometime. It will keep you grounded in the relevant.

 

[MitchMan]

You right winger babbitts flatter the “productive citizens” way too much if you mean the entrepreneurial class or the merely the wealthy as well. If you have resources to invest, knowing where to invest is not that hard. There are plenty of experts out there to help. Plus, knowledge of existing demand and therefore investment opportunities when the demand exists, is easily found. That’s why those who have wealth see their proportion of the nation’s wealth continue to grow. Except for the recent downturn due to the right winged thieves in Wall Street (you know, the bastards that you knuckle heads love to emulate and venerate and envy and want to give more freedom to), the proportion of the nation’s wealth in the hands of the wealthy just keeps growing. It’s a no brainer to first observe where demand exists, and then increase production or start a business to produce to take profitable advantage of such demand.

Right now, the wealthy have plenty of money to invest. Business is sitting on record profits and on $1.66 trillion in working capital. The reason nothing is happening is because demand is down. The economy is only using 70% of its productive capacity because, and here it is again, dope, the demand is down. Have you noticed the increase in vacant retail space? Hmmmm? You think that those businesses went out because demand was up for their products or because their income tax rate was too high or because the capital gains rate was too high? You idiot, they have enjoyed the tax give away ever since Bush ll gave it to them. You fools, don’t you know that taxes are only applied to the profits? That means that all their business expenses were paid, that is, all the costs to produce were paid, and then they had money left over after taking care of the business requirements, even amortization and depreciation. So, therefore, the income tax did nothing to diminish their operations, you morons. Accounting 101, morons. I wonder if any of you talking heads have ever even owned a business. Ever read a financial statement? Do you know how to read them? How about an accrual basis financial statement? I know, too complicated for pea brains like you all.


This talk about taking money away from the “productive people” is just crap. The wealthy have the lion’s share of the country’s wealth by leaps and bounds, and their share of it continues to grow to beyond obscene levels. The wealth being in their pockets instead of in the pockets of the majority of Americans, the working class, is what is dampening demand and holding back the economy. 2nd worst level in the world! And you think they don’t have enough and that’s why the economy is suffering. What a fools message, prima facie. 2nd worst in the world, and you think they don’t have enough. Unbelievable!

Even Milton Friedman said that any additional tax breaks (cap gains or ordinary income tax) for the wealthy result in only a small fraction going back into the productive resources. Actually, that is taught in basic microeconomics 101. But, again, you right wingers are just morons. Your problem is that you listen way too much to jerks and ignoramuses like Limbaugh and Beck. You know what that makes you babbitts?

 

[sparky]

As this chart from from Wealth for the Common Good shows, the top 400 taxpayers — who have more wealth than half of all Americans combined — are paying lower taxes than they have in a generation, as their tax responsibilities have slowly collapsed since the New Deal era as working families have been asked to pay more and more:

the People's Budget>

The People's Budget - Megan McArdle - Business - The Atlantic

 

[Truthmatters]

Gee I wonder why the US cant pay the bills?

 

[asterism]

You right winger babbitts flatter the “productive citizens” way too much if you mean the entrepreneurial class or the merely the wealthy as well. If you have resources to invest, knowing where to invest is not that hard. There are plenty of experts out there to help. Plus, knowledge of existing demand and therefore investment opportunities when the demand exists, is easily found. That’s why those who have wealth see their proportion of the nation’s wealth continue to grow. Except for the recent downturn due to the right winged thieves in Wall Street (you know, the bastards that you knuckle heads love to emulate and venerate and envy and want to give more freedom to), the proportion of the nation’s wealth in the hands of the wealthy just keeps growing. It’s a no brainer to first observe where demand exists, and then increase production or start a business to produce to take profitable advantage of such demand.

Right now, the wealthy have plenty of money to invest. Business is sitting on record profits and on $1.66 trillion in working capital. The reason nothing is happening is because demand is down. The economy is only using 70% of its productive capacity because, and here it is again, dope, the demand is down. Have you noticed the increase in vacant retail space? Hmmmm? You think that those businesses went out because demand was up for their products or because their income tax rate was too high or because the capital gains rate was too high? You idiot, they have enjoyed the tax give away ever since Bush ll gave it to them. You fools, don’t you know that taxes are only applied to the profits? That means that all their business expenses were paid, that is, all the costs to produce were paid, and then they had money left over after taking care of the business requirements, even amortization and depreciation. So, therefore, the income tax did nothing to diminish their operations, you morons. Accounting 101, morons. I wonder if any of you talking heads have ever even owned a business. Ever read a financial statement? Do you know how to read them? How about an accrual basis financial statement? I know, too complicated for pea brains like you all.


This talk about taking money away from the “productive people” is just crap. The wealthy have the lion’s share of the country’s wealth by leaps and bounds, and their share of it continues to grow to beyond obscene levels. The wealth being in their pockets instead of in the pockets of the majority of Americans, the working class, is what is dampening demand and holding back the economy. 2nd worst level in the world! And you think they don’t have enough and that’s why the economy is suffering. What a fools message, prima facie. 2nd worst in the world, and you think they don’t have enough. Unbelievable!

Even Milton Friedman said that any additional tax breaks (cap gains or ordinary income tax) for the wealthy result in only a small fraction going back into the productive resources. Actually, that is taught in basic microeconomics 101. But, again, you right wingers are just morons. Your problem is that you listen way too much to jerks and ignoramuses like Limbaugh and Beck. You know what that makes you babbitts?

What type of business do you own and have you ever lost money but still paid taxes?

 

[asterism]

Gee I wonder why the US cant pay the bills?

Because the US, local, and state governments don't manage money well, they spend more than is available. If every dollar in corporate operating accounts were seized right now it would only provide enough to balance the federal budget for one year.

What do you think would happen to businesses, jobs, and future tax revenue if all the operating funds were seized?

 

[Truthmatters]

NO because we have eliminated most of our tax base by giving the wealthy a free ride in this country and the republicans crashed our economy for the second time in one lifetime.

 

[Truthmatters]

CEO pay soars while workers' pay stalls - USATODAY.com

 

[asterism]

NO because we have eliminated most of our tax base by giving the wealthy a free ride in this country and the republicans crashed our economy for the second time in one lifetime.

We have eliminated most of our tax base?

That's just not true.

Historical Source of Revenue as Share of GDP

 

[asterism]

CEO pay soars while workers' pay stalls - USATODAY.com

Median CEO pay in 2010 was $9.0 million, based on 158 Standard & Poor’s 500 index companies

So that's 158 CEOs who did well. How about the other 5.9 million CEOs?

Statistics of U.S. Businesses- Tabulations by Geography, Industry, and Enterprise Employment Size

 

[Truthmatters]

Now did you actiually look at the decrease in the corporate numbers?

The corporate taxes have decreased greatly huh?


How about the taxes on the 1%?

 

[Truthmatters]

OUR American tax base is not the same base we used to depend on to fund this country.

All the republicans do is call for more and more tax cuts for the most privledged Americans.


They want to shrink our government to a size they can drown the whole thing in the bath tub.

 

[asterism]

Now did you actiually look at the decrease in the corporate numbers?

The corporate taxes have decreased greatly huh?


How about the taxes on the 1%?

The corporate tax rates have decreased. The inflation adjusted amounts paid have increased dramatically. $150,000 tax on $1 Million income is much more than $50,000 on $100,000 income don't you think?

The tax base has not been eliminated, the federal government just can't manage money and spend within the means of money available.