The Ideal, the Perceived, and the Actual Distribution of Wealth-USA

• Footwedge

  Now the 5 minute video does not cite any of the sources for their graphs, but from a few books that I have read, the numbers appear quite accurate.
  
  For those that complain about the top 1% "getting cheated" by paying a higher tax rate...you might want to ponder what the video is saying. Moreover, when the same group complains about the 47% of Americans who pay nothing in federal taxes, you might also want to do a little soul searching in justifying your position.
  
  Our capitalist system as it has morphed into over the past 3 decade is not the one envisioned by Adam Smith...at all.
  
  http://www.dailyfinance.com/on/Wealth-Inequality-in-America-viral-video-Politizane/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D278339
• Cleveland Buck

  

  While you are doing your research, if you find this wealth redistribution favoring the bankers, arms makers, media conglomerates, drug companies, and politicians, ask yourself what they what they all have in common. When you realize that they are the first to get their hands on the billions of newly created dollars every month, maybe it will make you ponder the role of the central bank in the impoverishment of the people of this country.
• gut

  You can't fix Washington's spending problems by taxing the rich. That's just a different spin on their favorite game of kicking the can.
  
  The smarter people are really railing on the uncontrolled spending and the insidious hidden taxes that hit all Americans.
• sleeper

  

  This just tells me Americans aren't hard workers by and large. I hope the wealthy keep earning their hard earned money and everyone else can keep crying regarding their pathetic lives.
• fish82

  

  Footwedge;1400017 wrote:Now the 5 minute video does not cite any of the sources for their graphs, but from a few books that I have read, the numbers appear quite accurate.
  
  For those that complain about the top 1% "getting cheated" by paying a higher tax rate...you might want to ponder what the video is saying.
  
  http://www.dailyfinance.com/on/Wealth-Inequality-in-America-viral-video-Politizane/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D278339

  It's painfully easy to see what the video is saying. It's the same class envy bullsht we've been hearing for 35 years.
• HitsRus

  

  I really don't care if someone has more than me, just as long as I can keep what I earn.
• majorspark

  

  If you are after wealth? What to do? The income tax is a tax on the accumulation of wealth (thats always good to attack). Not net worth. How would you propose to "redistribute" held wealth? Lets here your solution.
• Footwedge

  fish82;1400177 wrote:It's painfully easy to see what the video is saying. It's the same class envy bullsht we've been hearing for 35 years.

  OK. call it class envy then. Feel better now? Call it anything you want. You seem to be ok with the redistribution of wealth. Enddgame capitalism by pure mathematics will, in time, be an aristocracy. 1% owns 99% of everything. Again, it is simply mathematics and there's nothing you can do about it.
  
  So tell me Fish, you going to be a member of the 1% that own 99% of the wealth? At the current pace, that scenario should be playing out in about 15 years or so. Or are you going to join ranks of the 99% peons who will own nothing? How well connected are you with "the club"? The crony capitalists? Ever wonder why not one investment banker was indicted for fraud after 2008? Does it bother you that 3-4 trillion was stolen from the 99%ers? You OK with that?
  
  Ever wonder how the insurance giants and the banking cartel easily paid back the bailout money? Ever wonder? Do you think the bankers worked a little harder in order to pat off Uncl Sam? Who are the customers of these banks? The money comes from the customers, doesn't it? We've got a bouncing ball here Fishy. You keeping an eye on the ball?
  
  I wouldn't lose sleep over it though...you can do absolutely nothing to change the path. Just curious, how much of your net worth went pffffft since 2008? They'll get it all...every dime. From your pensions...to your social security...to the health care industry. They want it all, and they will get it all.
  
  But I digress..it's just a class welfare thingy. We should bow down to the royalty that set the rules of crony capitalism, collusion, price fixing, monopolistic tendencies, and whatever else they want to do. Oh, and outsourcing the jobs for the pleasure of the few is what we really weant, isn't it?
• believer

  

  Like it or not there have ALWAYS been have's and have not's in human history. We are no different now than in the past except that our society's - um - "poor" are wealthy in comparison to the vast majority of the world's truly poor.
  
  We may not like it but there's not much we can do to change it short of revolution. And revolutions work for a while and then - guess what - that's right, the power brokers of the "new" society set out to separate themselves from the 99%.
  
  Meanwhile, I suppose we can always ask the Feds to keep raising taxes on the eeeeevil wealthy. Once the bureaucrats and politicians beholden to the eeeeevil wealthy take their "fair share" of the wealth redistribution maybe they'll toss us a bone.
  
  Nope. That's right I forgot. They're telling us we all need to sacrifice now.
  
  The more things hope & change.....
• Manhattan Buckeye

  "Just curious, how much of your net worth went pffffft since 2008? They'll get it all...every dime. From your pensions...to your social security...to the health care industry. They want it all, and they will get it all."
  
  Are you talking about the federal government, because it seems as if the greater DC area is the only part of the country that has benefited from the great recession.
  
  I didn't realize you were so anti-Obama. They want it all, controlling your healthcare, controlling your finances, controlling your choices, giving away awards at the Oscars.
  
  Who knew Footwedge was a GOPer?
• fish82

  

  Footwedge;1400254 wrote:OK. call it class envy then. Feel better now? Call it anything you want. You seem to be ok with the redistribution of wealth. Enddgame capitalism by pure mathematics will, in time, be an aristocracy. 1% owns 99% of everything. Again, it is simply mathematics and there's nothing you can do about it.
  
  So tell me Fish, you going to be a member of the 1% that own 99% of the wealth? At the current pace, that scenario should be playing out in about 15 years or so. Or are you going to join ranks of the 99% peons who will own nothing? How well connected are you with "the club"? The crony capitalists? Ever wonder why not one investment banker was indicted for fraud after 2008? Does it bother you that 3-4 trillion was stolen from the 99%ers? You OK with that?
  
  Ever wonder how the insurance giants and the banking cartel easily paid back the bailout money? Ever wonder? Do you think the bankers worked a little harder in order to pat off Uncl Sam? Who are the customers of these banks? The money comes from the customers, doesn't it? We've got a bouncing ball here Fishy. You keeping an eye on the ball?
  
  I wouldn't lose sleep over it though...you can do absolutely nothing to change the path. Just curious, how much of your net worth went pffffft since 2008? They'll get it all...every dime. From your pensions...to your social security...to the health care industry. They want it all, and they will get it all.
  
  But I digress..it's just a class welfare thingy. We should bow down to the royalty that set the rules of crony capitalism, collusion, price fixing, monopolistic tendencies, and whatever else they want to do. Oh, and outsourcing the jobs for the pleasure of the few is what we really weant, isn't it?

  
  Dude. The hyperbole here is pretty over the top. I'm not sure what else I can say. :huh:
• gut

  It might be good marketing/branding to attack the 1%, but this is all really about the top 1/10th of 1%.
  
  You can take the guy that made $50M last year and play the game of how much are you going to tax him and how much is he going to hide/shelter. But the people making $500k deserve better than that. They are very well off but far from "rich" in my book.
  
  We've had very rich people in this country for a very long time, and we've been hearing about this "wealth gap" for about as long. The class warfare debate is truly a classic, probably going back to the Romans and earlier.
  
  It's really little more than an excuse the Washington politic are using to expropriate power and wealth. The rich people are not the solution to this country's financial problems, but they are a path for Washington to get theirs.
• Cleveland Buck

  

  Footwedge;1400254 wrote:OK. call it class envy then. Feel better now? Call it anything you want. You seem to be ok with the redistribution of wealth. Enddgame capitalism by pure mathematics will, in time, be an aristocracy. 1% owns 99% of everything. Again, it is simply mathematics and there's nothing you can do about it.

  The opposite is actually true. End game central planning ends up in an aristocracy, as it always has throughout history. Free market capitalism, were it ever allowed to be implemented, would create so much wealth that there would be no need for class envy.
• believer

  

  Cleveland Buck;1400375 wrote:The opposite is actually true. End game central planning ends up in an aristocracy, as it always has throughout history. Free market capitalism, were it ever allowed to be implemented, would create so much wealth that there would be no need for class envy.

  no no no no!
  
  Capitalism is eeeevil. Rich people are eeeevil.
  
  Government is run by benevolent caretakers who wish to service our needs.
  
  Taxing the rich is the only true way to prosperity. Keep repeating the lie until you believe it.
  
  GET IT RIGHT!
• gut

  The real comedy/tragedy in all this is even with "30+ years" of the gubmit demonstrating its inability to reverse the wealth gap, people still believe one of the most corrupt and inefficient organizations [gubmit] the world has seen (examples of such over and over throughout human history) is the solution to redistribution.
  
  You've got all these poor suckers contracting with the gubmit to redistribute wealth, and paying fees equivalent to 110% for the service.
• Footwedge

  Manhattan Buckeye;1400257 wrote:"Just curious, how much of your net worth went pffffft since 2008? They'll get it all...every dime. From your pensions...to your social security...to the health care industry. They want it all, and they will get it all."
  
  Are you talking about the federal government, because it seems as if the greater DC area is the only part of the country that has benefited from the great recession.
  
  I didn't realize you were so anti-Obama. They want it all, controlling your healthcare, controlling your finances, controlling your choices, giving away awards at the Oscars.
  
  Who knew Footwedge was a GOPer?

  was a GOPer for 25 years.
• Footwedge

  Cleveland Buck;1400375 wrote:The opposite is actually true. End game central planning ends up in an aristocracy, as it always has throughout history. Free market capitalism, were it ever allowed to be implemented, would create so much wealth that there would be no need for class envy.

  One word. Wrong. Read the Wealth of Nations crib notes and you will understand that the human element trumps any and all free market theory.
• Footwedge

  gut;1400779 wrote:The real comedy/tragedy in all this is even with "30+ years" of the gubmit demonstrating its inability to reverse the wealth gap, people still believe one of the most corrupt and inefficient organizations [gubmit] the world has seen (examples of such over and over throughout human history) is the solution to redistribution.
  
  You've got all these poor suckers contracting with the gubmit to redistribute wealth, and paying fees equivalent to 110% for the service.

  The redistribution that you refer to has proven to be dichotomous. (is that a word?)
• Footwedge

  believer;1400628 wrote:no no no no!
  
  Capitalism is eeeevil. Rich people are eeeevil.
  
  Government is run by benevolent caretakers who wish to service our needs.
  
  Taxing the rich is the only true way to prosperity. Keep repeating the lie until you believe it.
  
  GET IT RIGHT!

  Um...let's see. The last 30 years or so have seen the lowest tax rates pretty much in the history of the US. And has coincided with the gap disparity as shown in the article.
• Footwedge

  fish82;1400299 wrote:Dude. The hyperbole here is pretty over the top. I'm not sure what else I can say. :huh:

  Hyperbole is great, ain't it? Crime and Punishment by Dostyevski (sp) sold me on the value of using it.
• Footwedge

  HitsRus;1400205 wrote:I really don't care if someone has more than me, just as long as I can keep what I earn.

  They will get it all. Maybe not in your lifetime, but they will get it all. What's happened over the past 30 years was engineered and designed. Professionals such as yourself...ain't in the big club.
• believer

  

  Footwedge;1401105 wrote:was a GOPer for 25 years.

  Congratulations for coming out of the closet on your liberalism. :thumbup:
• Cleveland Buck

  

  Footwedge;1401106 wrote:One word. Wrong. Read the Wealth of Nations crib notes and you will understand that the human element trumps any and all free market theory.

  You have your interpretation of one book backing you up. I have thousands of years of history backing me up.
• fish82

  

  Footwedge;1401109 wrote:Hyperbole is great, ain't it? Crime and Punishment by Dostyevski (sp) sold me on the value of using it.

  And here I thought Wealth of Nations was the only book you'd ever read.
  
  I guess I stand corrected.
• gut

  Footwedge;1401108 wrote:Um...let's see. The last 30 years or so have seen the lowest tax rates pretty much in the history of the US. And has coincided with the gap disparity as shown in the article.

  If you were really doing your homework you'd realize revenues have been pretty consistent as a % of GDP regardless of the rates in place. We don't have a revenue problem, never have.
  
  Unless you want to talk about taxes being too low, well then actually the poor and middle class don't contribute enough to their social insurance programs - they want the benefits the Europeans have without paying as much as Europeans do (and they aren't too happy with the growth and employment that goes with it).