US Income Inequality: Top !% Take Home 24% of US Income

[MikeK]

And they have the freedom to succeed, just as they have the freedom to fail.

That is right-wing hyperbole fed to you by the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

The "they" you are talking about would not have "succeeded" were it not for the underhanded removal of regulations that once operated to protect against the kind of manipulations which have brought our once stable economy to the brink of collapse. The politicians who removed those regulations serve the same master as you obviously but unknowingly do, the major difference being the politicians were well rewarded for their betrayal of the national interest while you remain oblivious to the insidious nature of your adopted ideology. The activities which have led to our economic problems are categorical organized crime!

just as every other citizen does.... a free society should not be about punishing success nor for padding failure.

Certain types of success deserve to be punished. One example is the successful accumulation of massive profits through usurious lending practices. Another is bribing corrupt politicians to remove regulations that prevent such devious forms of exploitation as the sub-prime mortgage scams.

Do you think it's okay for one percent of the population to control one fourth of the nation's GDP? Do you think it's okay for dozens of hedge fund traders to be "earning" upwards of two billion dollars each while millions of ordinary working people have lost or will lose their retirement funds, their jobs and their homes?

You need to understand the important difference between wealth and excessive wealth. A good place to start learning is to read about the Gilded Age and the circumstances that brought about the Great Depression. Because I don't think you, and others who have been conditioned to think like you, realize that you are a friend to the Robber Barons who put working class Americans on bread lines in the Twenties.

 

[The Rabbi]

So the fact that people become wealthy only indicates that they are screwing someone over?

If you really believe that you are one sad case.

 

[MikeK]

Typical HuffPuff crap.

'All men are CREATED equal". Key word: Created. Why is it inequality for some people to get more than others? Want more, get up off your ass and work harder.

How hard does one have to work to "earn" two billion dollars?

Do you have any real awareness of just how much money that is? Do you understand the devious machinations that made accumulation of that kind of profit possible?

 

[MikeK]

So what's your point? Should the State now order the confiscation of Citizens' Income to achieve "Equality?"

[...]

I strongly advocate exactly that approach to our country's economic troubles. The best thing government could do to solve our problems is confiscate all personal assets in excess of twenty million dollars.

So I regretfully advise that you must get rid of one of your Gulfstream jets and move out of that 46 room mansion. I know it will be hard but you're going to have to try to get along on $20 million from now on.

By the way, can you explain the phenomenon that accounts for why some of the most vigorous protests against confiscation of excessive wealth comes from those who don't have a pot to piss in?

 

[MikeK]

Remind me again why this is a problem?
The difference is that in 3rd world countries someone is guaranteed that kind of income because his father/brother/son/daughter etc is from the right family.
In American it happens because some people are smarter and work harder than others.

How smart was Ken Lay and how hard did he work?

You need to understand the difference between smart and devious. They are not the same. Nor is ambition the same as greed.

 

[MikeK]

I think we should round them up and shove them into internment camps and confiscate their assets.

No need for internment -- except for those who resist or evade. Confiscation of personal assets in excess of $20 million is all that is necessary.

It really is for the good of the People and "Equality."...People better start taking the Socialists/Progressives more seriously. They are very dangerous. It's not a joke. Your Freedom & Liberty really are at stake.

Are you aware that a progressive tax rate of 91% attended the most stable and economically productive period in our history? And lots of people made millions during that period. Now that the highest tax rate is only 15% we are in irresolvable debt and our economy is on the verge of collapse.

What are your thoughts about that?

 

[MikeK]

Socialism/Communism never = "Sharing the Wealth." It always only = Sharing the Poverty.

Sweden and Denmark are socialist nations, neither are impoverished and Denmark is believed to be the "happiest" country in the world. How do you account for that?

As for communism, there never has been a pure form of communism operating anywhere in the world. The Soviet Union made an effort in its early years but having just emerged from a ruinous war their economy was utterly destroyed. In order for communism to work it must begin with a viable economy to build from.

 

[Foxfyre]

Typical HuffPuff crap.

'All men are CREATED equal". Key word: Created. Why is it inequality for some people to get more than others? Want more, get up off your ass and work harder.

How hard does one have to work to "earn" two billion dollars?

Do you have any real awareness of just how much money that is? Do you understand the devious machinations that made accumulation of that kind of profit possible?

I dunno. How many hours do you think Bill Gates put in before he could let Microsoft run pretty much on its own energy? He wasn't born into money and he ran his first fledging business on a shoestring working out of a garage right here in Albuquerque. But he hit on a concept hundreds of millions were willing to pay for and so he prospered.

Ross Perot wasn't born in to money. He worked as a salesman for IBM until he saved up enough money to start Data Systems and the rest is history.

Warren Buffett was born with a few more advantages than most billionaires, but it was his inate skills as a mathematician and businessman that helped him turn modest wealth into great wealth.

Sam Walton was a depression baby born to struggling farmer parents who were barely ekeing out a living. But he was a visionary and able to turn small amounts of money into larger amounts until he built a retail empire and earned the distinction of being the world's richest man.

T Boone Pickens started out with a paper route as a youth and taught himself acquisitions and mergers, worked his way through college, and built an oil empire. Not sure he ever made it into the $2 billion class but he got close.

All these men started from humble beginnings and built financial empires with their own two hands, their brains, inspiration, work ethic, and innovation. And all have contributed enormously to hospitals, museums, foundations, and have helped thousands upon thousands of other people earn a living with some of those becoming wealthy too.

The lesson is that ANYBODY can do it if they have the ability, the work ethic, the ambition, and the initiative.

 

[boedicca]

The lesson is that ANYBODY can do it if they have the ability, the work ethic, the ambition, and the initiative.

And they are fortunate to be in an economy which respects property rights and liberty.

The Big Government Cronyism in our culture today is making it more and more difficult to start a business.

 

[Foxfyre]

The lesson is that ANYBODY can do it if they have the ability, the work ethic, the ambition, and the initiative.

And they are fortunate to be in an economy which respects property rights and liberty.

The Big Government Cronyism in our culture today is making it more and more difficult to start a business.

I don't know if it is more difficult to start a business but the more regulation, taxes, and mandates government heaps on business, it is sure a lot harder to show a profit and there is much less incentive to expand and create more jobs than there used to be. The current administration is the most business unfriendly I have seen in my lifetime and the only ones really prospering are the really big boys like G.E. and Intel and even most of their expansion is overseas.

 

[boedicca]

The regulatory situation is a Kafkaesque nightmare.

Here's a wee example.

I have three HR people on staff, all female. The Department of Labor is pressuring us to hire a man. This is a 150 person company. It's nuts that the Federal Government is worrying about the gender balance of a 3 person team.

And this is because we have one $200,000 contract with some federal department - so we had to undergo an EEOC audit.

Insane.

 

[MikeK]

Yay! Weez a Third World Nation!! Better calls the UN fo some of our cash back!! Looks like weez gonna need it now that the NY Slimes says weez Third World. I wants my money back UN!!

Our present economic circumstances classify us as a third world nation. The reason we don't know it is because we've been living on a credit card for so long that we think we're rich. But if all of our creditors, including China, closed down our accounts and demanded immediate payment in full you would soon see that the United States of America is in fact a third world nation.

Is your house paid for? Is your car paid for? Are your credit cards paid off? If so, you are one in many thousands. Are you aware that, thanks to government excess, your share of the National Debt is somewhere around $45,000. Can you pay that off?

I don't know if you have any grandchildren but if you do you should know they are in debt, too.

That's how bad it is.

 

[boedicca]

I would happily pay the government $90,000 now for my husband's and my share of the debt and forgo SS payments in the future if we would be exempt for taxes for the rest of our lives - with a binding iron clad agreement reflecting such an arrangement.

I bet a lot of people would go for such a debt restructuring.

 

[Old Rocks]

Jeff Weintraub: Teddy Roosevelt & Adam Smith on inheritance taxes (Susan Dunn & Sam Fleischacker)

When Theodore Roosevelt demanded that Congress pass a steeply graduated inheritance tax in 1906, he was proposing the one bill that members of his own patrician class feared most. In attacking what they cherished - not just their money but also their sense of entitlement and superiority - he was challenging the class system, not the capitalist system, turning the upper-class world upside down. As far as these plutocrats were concerned, T.R. had betrayed his own class to the point of no return.
As Republicans today seek an end to the inheritance tax, they are betraying the legacy of their great Republican President.
..........................................................................................................................

... and Sam Fleischacker's 2001 Salon piece explaining why Adam Smith, the patron saint of free-market economics, would have supported them, "Why capitalists should like estate taxes".
---------------
From Adam Smith to Thomas Jefferson, lovers of freedom have demanded that social privilege be earned -- not inherited. [....]
Estate taxes can easily look cruel or unfair if one calls them "death taxes." In fact, however, they are the fairest of all taxes, and have a long and proud history.
Adam Smith taught the students who attended his jurisprudential lectures that "there is no point more difficult to account for than the right we conceive men to have to dispose of their goods after death." He thought inheritance was clearly justified only when it was necessary to provide for dependent children.
Among those who attended Smith's lectures was the historian and jurist John Millar, who supported a change in the inheritance laws such that wills would be enforced only for a limited part of a person's property. Millar saw this as entirely compatible with a respect for property rights. He was joined in this, as in his enthusiasm for Smith, by Tom Paine.
And Thomas Jefferson, who described "The Wealth of Nations" as "the best book extant" on political economy, famously wondered at about the same time whether all hereditary privileges should be abolished since "the earth belongs in usufruct to the living." He could have been quoting Smith with those words: It is "the most absurd of all suppositions," said Smith, "that every successive generation of men have not an equal right to the earth."

 

[Paulie]

 

[MikeK]

That qualifies the US as a third world nation.

U.S. Income Inequality: Top 1 Percent Take Home 24 Percent Of U.S. Income

The New York Times:

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

and that 1% actually produces no product themselves.
They make their money from the labor of others.
Not judging, just saying.

one could say that about ANY business owner.
Yes. ON Planet liberal, all profit is evil as are all business owners.
What a bunch of class envy bullshit.

U.S. Citizen said the 1% with 24% of income produce no products, which is true because they are stock manipulators.

You said one could say that about ANY business owner.

Are you so thoroughly indoctrinated with right-wing propaganda that you actually harbor such a spurious notion?

 

[Foxfyre]

Yay! Weez a Third World Nation!! Better calls the UN fo some of our cash back!! Looks like weez gonna need it now that the NY Slimes says weez Third World. I wants my money back UN!!

Our present economic circumstances classify us as a third world nation. The reason we don't know it is because we've been living on a credit card for so long that we think we're rich. But if all of our creditors, including China, closed down our accounts and demanded immediate payment in full you would soon see that the United States of America is in fact a third world nation.

Is your house paid for? Is your car paid for? Are your credit cards paid off? If so, you are one in many thousands. Are you aware that, thanks to government excess, your share of the National Debt is somewhere around $45,000. Can you pay that off?

I don't know if you have any grandchildren but if you do you should know they are in debt, too.

That's how bad it is.

Yes our cars are paid off, we pay the full balance on our credit cards immediately when the bills come in. Our only contractual debt is a modest mortgage on our house and we have the cash to pay that off if we had to, but it would deplete our 'rainy day fund' too much to make that attractive right now. We have a modest income that I'm sure qualifies us to be counted among the 'poor' and eligible for all kinds of assistance but we eat well, live as we choose, and do just fine without any of that assistance. That is the case I believe with millions of the nation's 'poor'.

But we do cook most meals at home, don't eat out much, don't take expensive vacations, don't buy the latest gadgets and electronics, and find ways to economize as much as possible without reducing our quality of life in any significant way. And if we can't afford it, we don't buy it.

We would appreciate it if our elected leaders were as respectful of our money.

 

[kiwiman127]

Can you actually read or do you just search for terms like "tax cut failure" and post whatever dreck you find?
Not every tax cut produces more revenue. Only those that affect behavior at the margin, like cap gains, do so. Obama's giveaways to car buyers and home buyers did nothing.

I hate to burst your bubble but I agree with "Obama's giveaways to car buyers and home buyers did nothing". I'm not exactly a liberal, but I'm also not a conservative who uses unfounded talking points.
My posts declaring the tax cuts don't pay for themselves use a GOP Administration numbers and data. Bush Administration economists agree, tax cuts don't generate revenue. All I get back are opinions.

You have gotten back facts and arguments. That you choose to ignore them is your problem.
Saying "tax cuts don't generate revenue" is like saying "medicine doesn't cure illness." In some cases it does, in some it doesn't.

And since you quote Greg Mankiw, here he is saying virtually the opposite of what you say:
Greg Mankiw's Blog: The Growth Effects of Tax Policy

Random Observations for Students of Economics
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
The Growth Effects of Tax Policy
From today's Wall Street Journal:

Dynamic Analysis
By Robert Carroll and N. Gregory Mankiw

Does tax relief mean more economic growth? Many people believe the answer is yes, and now they get strong support from the staff of the U.S. Treasury.

Most press reports on the Mid-Session Review of the federal budget, released by the Bush administration a couple of weeks ago, focused on the good news about expanding tax revenues and the shrinking budget deficit. But for tax-policy geeks, the most intriguing part of the report was an easily overlooked box on page 3: "A Dynamic Analysis of Permanent Extension of the President's Tax Relief." Over the past six months, the Treasury Department staff has been studying the dynamic effects of tax cuts on the economy. The results of this analysis, previewed in this box, were released yesterday in more complete form (available at U.S. Treasury - Office of Tax Policy).

A bit of background: Most official analysis of tax policy is based on what economists call "static assumptions." While many microeconomic behavioral responses are included, the future path of macroeconomic variables such as the capital stock and GNP are assumed to stay the same, regardless of tax policy. This approach is not realistic, but it has been the tradition in tax analysis mainly because it is simple and convenient.

In his 2007 budget, President Bush directed the Treasury staff to develop a dynamic analysis of tax policy, and we are now reaping the fruits of those efforts. The staff uses a model that does not consider the short-run effects of tax policy on the business cycle, but instead focuses on its longer run effects on economic growth through the incentives to work, save and invest, and to allocate capital among competing uses.

The Treasury report describes what will happen to the economy if the tax relief of the past few years is made permanent, compared to the alternative scenario of reverting back to the tax code as it was in 2000. Specifically, the report analyzes the effects of lower taxes on dividends and capital gains, the effects of lower taxes on ordinary income, and the extension of other tax cuts, including the new 10% bracket, the expanded child credit and marriage-penalty relief. Here are three main lessons.

Lesson No. 1: Lower tax rates lead to a more prosperous economy.

According to the Treasury analysis, a permanent extension of the recent tax cuts leads to a long-run increase in the capital stock of 2.3%, and a long-run increase in GNP of 0.7%. In today's economy, such a GNP expansion would mean an extra $90 billion a year that the nation can spend on consumer goods to raise living standards, or capital goods to maintain prosperity. More than two-thirds of this expansion occurs within 10 year

=====================
Who does this guy think he is,,,, Sybil?
He puts a theory in an economics textbook and then writes the polar opposite in a co-op piece and it looks like around the same time frame.
Anyway, here's a piece of his co-op you left out, probably due to space.

The Treasury's main analysis assumes that lower tax revenue will over time be accompanied by reduced spending on government consumption. But the report also shows what happens if spending cuts are not forthcoming. In this alternative scenario, a permanent extension of recent tax relief is assumed to lead to an eventual increase in income taxes.

The results are strikingly different. Instead of increasing by 0.7% in the long run, GNP now falls by 0.9%. Tax relief is good for growth, but only if the tax reductions are financed by spending restraint. One exception: Lower taxes on dividends and capital gains promote growth, even if they require higher income taxes

Now naturally if you are getting less revenue spending has to be cut or taxes must go up, that's a no-brainer.
His last statement is interesting, lower captial gains and dividend taxes, even if it's required to raise income taxes.
So, the investor class is paying a much lower tax rate on their investment income (15%)than the working class is on their income. The investor class's main source of income in investments. And who is going to experience the income tax increase? Is this a clear display of wealth re-distribution upwards via the government? And hasn't this been going on for quite awhile?

 

[The Rabbi]

It must really suck being wrong all the time like you are. Here you had Greg Mankiw all wrapped up. And now I got and post his exact words contradicting what you thought he wrote.

FWIW, revenue from the decreased cap gains and div tax rate increased dramatically after they were enacted. Lower rates brought more revenue as the incentive to hold appreciated investments decreased relative to opportunity cost. Thus was it always so.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Wrong..The federal government SPENT $2 trillion more than it should have.
Question for you to answer. And this is the poly reply I will consider valid...
Why is it no one in government or the main stream media ever concerns itself with how a TAX INCREASE would be paid for?
High taxes do nothing but feed an overstuffed out of control spending bunch of politicians and bureaucrats.
Oh wait... I am wrong.. High taxes also kill economic growth.
Slapping high earners with confiscatory taxes does not put one thin dime in anyone's pocket. High taxes is make the producers miserable and freeloaders ecstatic
You support confiscatory taxes. That makes you a freeloader.... or a glutton for punishment.

How about we don't cut taxes until we have identified comparable spending cuts first?

This GOP....cut taxes and hope for a miracle nonsense hasn't worked in 30 years

I'm still waiting to hear which tax breaks are "unwarranted." Or was that just rhetorical?

On planet liberal, there is no such thing as a legitimate tax break. To them, the higher the taxes the better. Except theirs of course...Why is it you think all those democrat voting seniors declare residency in FL even though they don't really "live" there. No state income tax.