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The Big Obscenity: A Trillion Dollars a Year to the Richest 1%
(That's seven times more than the budget deficits of all 50 states combined)
If you make less than $114,000 a year (90% of us), you've been financially damaged by the flow of income to the richest 1% of Americans over the past 30 years. Based on Internal Revenue Service figures, if middle- and upper-middle class families had maintained the same share of American productivity that they held in 1980, they would be making an average of $12,500 more per year.
If you make less than $160,000 a year (95% of us), your household value has decreased, percentage-wise, over the last 25 years. According to noted researcher Edward Wolff, only the top 5% of American families increased their percentage of the country's total household net worth from 1983 to 2007.
U.S. GDP has quintupled since 1980, and we all contributed to that success. It's not unreasonable to say that upper-middle class families should have maintained the same size of their slice of pie.
But if earnings since 1980 were based on this measure of productiveness, the richest 1% of Americans would be making $1 trillion less per year.
A trillion dollars a year. That's more than we spend on the entire military.
A trillion dollars a year. That's seven times more than the budget deficits of all 50 states combined. Many states have been forced to cut police forces and teachers to balance their budgets.
A trillion dollars a year. Yet Congress just voted to continue the Bush tax cuts.
The richest 1% ($400,000 or more) didn't work harder than the rest of us. They profited from stock market gains, shrewdly designed financial instruments, and tax cuts.
The very wealthy insist that all their income will stimulate the economy. But low-income earners spend a greater percentage of their overall income on consumption, while high-income earners save more. Middle-class America has been led to believe that the growth at the top will eventually produce more jobs. But many of us have college-educated sons and daughters who can't find suitable employment. Fortune Magazine reported that the 500 largest U.S. companies cut a record 821,000 jobs in 2009 while their collective profits increased to a record $391 billion.
Even the upper class should be concerned about this. As inequality increases, the majority of Americans will consume less, leading to conditions not unlike the years before the Great Depression, when the working class was unable to buy the goods they produced. The rich, with extra money, speculate in risky investments. The majority of middle-class Americans, with little money, go deeper into debt. The result is an unstable economy for all of us.
Who are the people making up the richest 1%? Bankers, CEOs, upper management, university presidents, Congressmen. They live in their own world, supporting each other's needs. They can no longer relate to the needs of average Americans.
Taxing them is not "soaking the rich." The greatest redistribution of income in history has taken place over the last 30 years, and the victims are beginning to make a fuss about it.
129 Comments so far
Show AllThe problem with this analysis and its conclusions is that it assumes that those with high incomes didn't work harder, invent more or produce more value than the others and that there is a static amount of income that is to be "distributed" among the workers. That is simply not the case. The static revenue analysis it reflects ignores the fact that some people -- CEOs among others -- do work harder than Joe Lunchpail. They add value that otherwise would not be there. The left wing want to expropriate that value, created by individual initiative and hard work, and redistribute to those who didn't earn it in the interest of -- an all-purpose word that is a favorite among leftists -- "fairness".
Fortunately, the vast bulk of the American people see through that argument and as a result the left wing's ideological balloon is rapidly deflating. Only 2% of American estates pay the death tax (and that before the recent rise in the floor from $3MM to $5MM), yet a majority of Americans favor entire repeal. Why? Because (a) they think the death tax is double taxation of after-tax money and is unfair, and (b) they think they may have a chance to become wealthy and don't want their families and heirs to be disadvantaged. The left wing is increasingly becoming out of touch with mainstream America; it has become a latter-day pterodactyl.
ha ha ha ha ha...thanks for this one pal.
If you believe this...
Troll
HAHA
Horace,
Yeah those CEO's don't even have carts and caddies on the golf course! And like you say, why should top earners have to pay ANY taxes!!!!
It's too bad they are working SO HARD for stuff we don't want even if we are forced to buy it. Maybe they shouldn't have to work this hard.
Dear Horace,
It is your balloon that has burst. Time is catching up. SOCIALISM is not a dirty word, much as you'd like it to be. Socialism prevents all income funneling up to the 2% and also prevents money buying government. YOU like that your government is a military empire, but Horace, that is plain sin.
The trouble with your ideology is that average citizens do worse and worse and keep paying for the profits of the few when there are SOME functions government SHOULD provide, keeping our costs lower.
And you know what Horace? Plenty of people would be very comfortable and would have more than "enough." I know the word "ENOUGH" is a bitter pill for the insatiable.
PEACE HORACE, please visit here more often.
You may be correct that some of the left wing has become "_____" However there are some of us here, it seems on the left side, though I don't like labels here I am where most label themselves as left. So there are some of us here who don't see anything about mainstream America that you see at all. You are in the box and we see you, and we understand you. But why you are shouting at us through your trapped position to gain attention for you and your trap is beyond me. I see you and I hear you and don't worry, while you defend your position within a failing system even as you seem to cry for help, we are working to save you while you are working at "______". Either you can defend the old system or you can build a new system, you can't do both. There are people on the right who are also out of the box, so don't you worry no matter what side you are on, we have your back.
What a load of hooey, Horace.
No matter how much tax is paid on the first million, the tax on the second million should ALWAYS be higher.
You, Sir, peddle the same old crap of the elitists among us who use every trick in the books to rationalize their insatiable greed. That line does little to cleanse your perverted soul. What a gargantuan ego!
I was a CEO for the better part of 40 years. I can tell you, unequivocally, beyond the investment of funds, the so-called "ruling" class contributed damned little to the common effort. I, and every other CEO, if they are honest with themselves and others have no trouble admitting the inescapable fact that whatever an enterprise produces, it is dependent on the knowlede and skills of those in production. I was successful because of those who worked "with" me; not for me. My role, and that of every CEO with a realistic perspective, knows their role is analagous to that of the conductor of a symphony orchestra. He brings myriad talents together to produce the music, but he, also, realizes that he hasn't the ability to play every instrument that makes it possible. It is a shared responsibility and a group effort. Always was and always will be. If you believe otherwise, you are a hopelessly ignorant and pathetic specimen of humanity.
P.S. Is "Horace" a Freudian rendition of "Whore Ass?" Just curious.
Interesting arguments.
Are you more referring to those CEOs that are finally responsible for the financial meltdown; or these that make their high salaries by shipping US based jobs to abroad for good?
Horace, you are living in an illusion. You have lost reality. The system is rigged for the rich.
How does Horace the troll always get in first on these threads? "death tax" is the estate tax. Stop with your corporate framing. And you cite a "majority", where is your evidence? A majority of the 1%?
You're a troll plain and simple, you're here to be the evil foil to get all the "lefties" riled up. You have nothing to contribute and by your statements your mind is closed. You're most likely in the upper 5 figure range and invested in the status quo. Unfortunately people of your ilk rarely pay the price for their ignorance, and that is truly a shame. I look forward to the day when your suit and tie job disappears and you have to pick up a shovel and do some real work.
Horace is probably an intern, or low level grunt, for some pr firm.
It's hard to find people in real life who defend the rights of the richest to keep on paying minimalist taxes.
But they keep on popping up in the comment section of articles that challenge the status quo.
Your analysis is so misguide and misinformed it is hard to know where to start. Maybe with the estate tax and all the misinformation put out about this tax that most Americans think they have to pay the tax on whatever pittance they made have at death.
So you think of the 300,000,000 million Americans only 5% work harder i.e. Paris Hilton, George Bush who only ran failed business and then he failed this country by almost bankrupting this country and all the other trust fund babies who do not do a days work and pay only 15% on their earnings. When taxes were at 90% to 70% from the 50's through 70's everybody prospered and yes millionaires were made. The reason we became a greater nation, more productive, and corporations thrived was because these CEO's instead of paying more taxes even back then they had loopholes put money into their companies, workers, R & D, innovation and America became exceptional and again the middle class was created. It is only greed that drives banks and corporations and the rich as enough is never enough. These people have not create value in this society, in America. Yes, they have transferred the wealth of this country, intellectual property, and innovation to China, India et al and they have gotten tax breaks here in America and subsidies in this country and gotten themselves a whole hell of lot richer in pursuit and the cheapest labor with the less regulations on the environment i.e. air and water and on human rights. Now is that something you think is productive? I don't, and if the other 46% of Americans would really pay attention and question what is being said by people who repeat,repeat and repeat misinformation and lies. Voltaire said if you can get people to believe in absurdities, you can get them to commit atrocities. That is very scary but we see some of the atrocities today.
yea those people on wall street work so hard and produce so much
the guys at our bank who keep thinking up new fees for our bank accounts, they work so hard
all the technology that the corporations and monolopies "patent" and claim as their own, justifying their income, was developed by all of us, and mostly stolen by them
the only thing they invent is more ways to be greedy
the real hardest working people in the world are the ones paid the least
Joe Lunchpail would really burn rubber if he could be assured of getting rich, or even just making a couple hundred k a year. You'd be amazed what value he'd add.
Smug, self-righteous paper traders pride themselves on their work-ethic, while producing nothing of value. It's gambling for the most part, and if you screw up you can get your handout from the government, which comes ultimately from Joe Lunchpail's pocket, a nickle and dime at a time.
The American people do not support this rip-off. They are in fact wondering why these scam artists with their great work ethic are not being prosecuted. The right to get rich at the expense of everyone else hurts the rich, too. They are actually more dependent on Joe Lunchpail than he on them, like the plantation owners of the old south who held their slaves in such contempt. He actually produces something as he remains a debt peon to the rich.
Keep dreaming, Horace, and keep your firearms close at hand.
OK lets deconstruct Horace's post. First off you don't run a giant corporation to work ridiculously hard to make your money. What you do is to make some money off of the labor of all the people that work for you. The less you pay them the more you can make for yourself.
Now according to the Consumerist, average CEO pay has risen 298% during the period between 1995 and 2005, while the average workers pay as only risen by 4.3%. Now according to Horace's theory of hard CEO work, that must mean the CEOs worked 298% harder over that 10 year period. Does that mean they were slackers in 1995, then suddenly got a work ethic over those 10 years? Or is one of the real reasons that hey are making that much more money, is that they outsourced millions of jobs to to cheaper labor areas, then pocketed some of those labor costs savings for themselves? I'll let you all decide that for yourselves.
As far as CEOs working harder than Joe Luchpail, go watch some episodes of Undercover Boss. That show puts that myth to bed real quick. Most of the CEOs come away shocked how hard their workers work for them. A few CEOs actually were embarrassed how at easy their jobs were compared to those of the people that worked for them.
Now lets go onto Horace's "Death Tax" , or more accurately described as the "Paris Hilton" tax. The founding fathers were against passing on vast inheritances. They felt it was incompatible with democracy. This Economist' s article shows that quite well. http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2010/10/estate_tax_and_founding_fathers?page=1 Now Horace is correct that many think they don't want a Hilton tax to effect them when they become rich, but the only way that is going to happen in 21st century America is if they win Power Ball. Upward mobility in America is no where near what it used to be, as show in this News Week article: http://www.newsweek.com/2009/01/16/the-end-of-upward-mobility.html
So I am quite sure that if Americans knew the truth about the Paris Hilton Tax and not the lies surrounding the Death Tax they would be be all for an inheritance tax on very large estates. I mean, seriously do we need more Paris Hiltons? Also if the rich really cared about their heirs they would not want to pass huge inheritances on to them for their own safety. The peasants only put up with that crap for so long, then things get ugly. I have heard it said that there is no look dumber than the one on the head of an aristocrat, that is sitting on top of a pike. (Google Foulon French Revolution)
I know this is all a game to Horace and his ilk. They think it is completely legitimate to win an argument with disinformation and lies. Everything is debate to them, where anything goes. They think it is a good thing to get a population to vote against its best interests, for the enrichment of a few percent at the top. But the thing they don't get is that there is an underlying hard reality that can not be fooled, cant be bargained with, and cant be lied to. My only question is how bad things are going to get before we run head long into that wall of reality that is just sitting there, waiting, waiting for us ALL.
Hat off to you, NC-Tom. Very nice analysis.
"OK lets deconstruct Horace's post."
Tee hee.
"What you do is to make some money off of the labor of all the people that work for you."
This is true, has been so for centuries. An excellent business model.
"The less you pay them the more you can make for yourself."
And you say that as though the laborer has no option to go and work for someone else, which is not true. Companies lose good people every day to competitors who make better deals. It is unfortunate for those with limited skills that are not hghly valued that they have much more limited options.
"Now according to the Consumerist, average CEO pay has risen 298% during the period between 1995 and 2005, while the average workers pay as only risen by 4.3%."
Does "average CEO" include the pay of *thousands* of "CEOs" of very small Mom and Pop operations that happen to be organized as corporations? And why doesn't The Consumerist tell us what change has occured over this time with CEO pay as a percentage of total company expences? Stockholders just don't care about executive pay, because this figure is small. The bottom line is that you are unable to *demonstrate* a *causal* relation between CEO pay and average worker pay.
" I'll let you all decide that for yourselves."
Great idea! Why not, when you aren't going to provide any *data* on that anyway? We can all *guess* on this question just like you.
"As far as CEOs working harder than Joe Luchpail, go watch some episodes of Undercover Boss."
Yes, pop culture is always a good substitute for reliable data! LOL!
"That show puts that myth to bed real quick."
Oh yes! It's the last word on the subject! *snicker*
"Most of the CEOs "
"Most" of how many total featured on this show? A dozen maybe? Out of how many CEOs in the country? I can't beleive you offered this as a serious way to bolster your "case".
On inheritence tax I don't have a quarrel.
"They think it is completely legitimate to win an argument with disinformation and lies."
Far better to rely on pop culture, guessing, and a misunderstanding of how labor markets work like you and your ilk, right?
Wow, yet another post totally detached from the reality of average workers in the USofA.
"And you say that as though the laborer has no option to go and work for someone else, which is not true. Companies lose good people every day to competitors who make better deals. It is unfortunate for those with limited skills that are not hghly valued that they have much more limited options."
Of course that is technically true for a minority of workers. But if it was wide spread, then wages would be going up overall because of competition. The fact that wages have been stagnant for decades no proves that your statement is not true for the overall labor force. I would think that someone that "understands" markets would realize this. (See http://abcnews.go.com/Business/strangling-middle-class-america/story?id=11325933 )
"Does "average CEO" include the pay of *thousands* of "CEOs" of very small Mom and Pop operations that happen to be organized as corporations? And why doesn't The Consumerist tell us what change has occured over this time with CEO pay as a percentage of total company expences? Stockholders just don't care about executive pay, because this figure is small. The bottom line is that you are unable to *demonstrate* a *causal* relation between CEO pay and average worker pay."
http://consumerist.com/2007/04/ceo-pay-up-298-average-workers-43-1995-2005.html
Above is the article I referenced. They were comparing CEO pay to the profits of the S&P 500, so I assume they are referencing the salaries of the CEOs of those same companies. But if you want to go on the assumption that the "CEO" of a mom and pop shops salary has risen 300% in the last 10 years, all I can say is good for you.
"Great idea! Why not, when you aren't going to provide any *data* on that anyway? We can all *guess* on this question just like you."
I cited 3 references in my first reply, provide 2 links in that reply and two more references in this reply. You provided NO references. So where the hell is your *data*?
"As far as CEOs working harder than Joe Luchpail, go watch some episodes of Undercover Boss."
Yes, pop culture is always a good substitute for reliable data! LOL!
I used that reference because it was the actual CEOs talking about their experience. You from the horses mouth, not opinions from anonymous internet posters. Please provide *data* that demonstrates CEOs work hundreds of times harder than their average workers, thus justifying their salaries.
"Wow, yet another post totally detached from the reality of average workers in the USofA."
Except that I *am* an "average worker".
"Of course that is technically true."
Yes it is.
"But if it was wide spread, then wages would be going up overall because of competition."
You obviously don't understand "competition". When many workers compete for few jobs, wages are not likely to go up. OTOH, when many companies compete for few skilled workers that are valued and rare, wages do in fact, go up. "Technically".
"The fact that wages have been stagnant for decades no proves that your statement is not true for the overall labor force."
See above, you completely misunderstand competition in labor markets. What we have today are many workers with skill sets that are not so special, so they can't command high wages. A grade schooler can understand this once someone explains it.
I am glad I was able to get you up to speed on this one.
"Above is the article I referenced. They were comparing CEO pay to the profits of the S&P 500,"
I was asking about a comparison to "expenses", not "profits". You are still unable to *demonstrate* a *causal* relation between CEO pay and average worker pay." That article doesn't do it. I say that CEO pay is *irrelevant* to average worker pay due to it being only a small part of overall expenses, but i am just guessing.
"I cited 3 references in my first reply," provide 2 links in that reply and two more references in this reply."
You cited references to a point that I have shown above is of doubtful relevance to the plight of the average worker, and to a point that I did not contest. And you cited a TV show.
"You provided NO references. So where the hell is your *data*?"
I didn't claim anything to be true that isn’t my opinion, so I don't need data. And one does not need to provide data to simply question the relevance of a certain piece of offered data to the overall issue.
Let’s try it this way: Do you think high CEO pay is a *cause* of low pay for average workers? If so, why? The article you cited makes no such clainm, offering other altogether different reasons.
Horace,
You are not Rupert Murdoch are you? Cause you sound an awful lot like him and his Faux News talking points gang! Next time you see O'Reilly, tell him he looks a little light in the loafers!
I see. So in essence you are stating "Paris Hilton is smarter then I am, is worthier, works harder and adds more to the society then I do".
That is not saying a whole lot about you don't you know...Indeed following that theory to its logical conclusion, the people of the United States of America are about the stupidest in the entire world.
Pfft...you're delusional. The only thing the greed mongers work really hard at is thinking up ways to SCREW the rest of us, the planet, and our future... to expand their filthy profit margin.
So, Horace, you are saying that the rich were underpaid before 1983. Is their pay for performance adequate now, or do you think they deserve more?
Also, you seem to think the many posters on commondreams want this money for themselves. Its not called commondreams for nothing. Most people here are poignantly aware of the actual good that money could do in the right hands (not necessarily theirs): teaching, police work, infrastructure, mental health, reducing a debt that constitutes a crime on the next generation, peace-craft and not just war-craft. As is common with people of your persuasion, you have difficulty understanding that not everybody thinks of themselves as their favorite charity. I know it is deeply ingrained within you, but your first best aspiration could actually be something bigger than yourself and an ill-defined, probably mythological, 'invisible hand'. Once you see the whole as bigger than the sum of the parts, I believe it would create the conflict within you that would open you up to all the good money can do, when investly wisely, rather than just greedily. A greedy investment returns money to the investor, a wise investment returns money to the investors community, of which he/she finds themselves a part.
Brilliant riposte. Touche'.
Thanks for the laugh.
Horace, you are completely off base. "the vast bulk of the American people see through that argument and as a result the left wing's ideological balloon is rapidly deflating" First, bulk refers to mass not number, seriously though your points are unfounded and simply rhetoric not based in fact. This is not a left nor right issue my friend but an issue who's tenets are fundamental to a free market society. What we are seeing is financial socialism among the elite. You know that word that the conservative right hate, "socialism".
The fact is that these CEO's among others that you speak of aren't creating wealth nor are they producing value, in fact, the opposite is true, they are stealing wealth from the "bulk" sic* of Americans and you will see more than rhetoric (as factual data is cited in this article). http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/21-11
So, read this. Learn something. Base you future arguments in fact and most of all, stop trying to sound intelligent or holier than thou because you don't do it well.
Oh, I just can't help myself. Horace, you are simply an idiot. I tried to refrain from such name calling but, guys I just couldn't help it, he infuriates me.
hhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahaahah
""""A trillion dollars a year. That's more than we spend on the entire military.""" Can someone say Boeing, Grumman, GE, stockholders? The damn war has made a lot of those people rich...and there you sit.
A whole bunch of stockholders have gotten rich off cheating in the mortgage market.....and there you sit.
A whole bunch of lying cheating oil barons have gotten rich stealing sovereign oil and overcharging you...and there you sit.
And whole bunch of companies have made fortunes by opting for the fortune cookie country......and there you sit.
A whole bunch of wall street jackasses have gotten rich thumbing their noses at you while your tax dollars support them and promote them and their right winged buddies....and there you sit.
well, shit where you sit, because that is where it's all going anyway...........
and there you are.
And you better start making a bigger fuss...cause they, those THEY, are coming for you with guns and prison just for voicing your opinion.
Fear won't serve you, shit or get off the pot, or you'll be sorry. I don't agree with the violence of the Patriots but I think they got it right about what the government is planning to do to all us Mundanes.
Well if it's that easy....STOP SHOPPING
Horace, You assume that there IS a correlation between how productive or inventive you are, and how much you make.
This just isn't so. My husband is a Ph.D. research chemist. Over the span of twenty years working for the same company, he has been the principle investigator of more than six patents. At least two of the patents have "gone commercial," netting his company millions. (And the other patents are just sitting "on the shelf" until someone is willing to buy them from the company: in other words, they will become commercially valuable in time.)
Yet my husband makes far less than the managers and stockholders, who don't PRODUCE research, but merely manipulate it. When he produces good chemistry, they pat him on the back, give him an awards dinner, and then go off with their rich buddies. Do they really "add value" to "what otherwise would not be there"? I beg to differ with your ridiculous assertion.
There are lots and lots of cases where people who add real value get next to nothing. I taught elementary school for twenty years. Teachers work hard and get paid little. There is no way to compensate me and millions of other teachers for our hard work but this society doesn't even try. Teachers probably work harder than anybody else as a group, but statistics show that of all college graduates, we are the lowest paid.
As for your assertion about most Americans favoring a repeal of the estate tax, that's simply not true.
I think YOU are out of touch with working America.
"The left wing is increasingly becoming out of touch with mainstream America"
The left wing is MAINSTREAM AMERICA you sad uninformed soul!
The right wing is made up of the upper 10% in income and others that are too stupid to know that they are being fooled into supporting that 10% in their crimes against America!
"The left wing is MAINSTREAM AMERICA "
You mean like all those who vote for the Green party, right? I think "mainstream America" would be indicated by a *large* voting bloc, not a small one.
You really think those CEOs are working harder than Joe Lunchpail? I'd like to see evidence of THAT! LOL!
Who took a second job, who's whole family has to work through holidays, weekends, and is still losing his house?
They add no value.
The investment brokers who said mortgages were the best investment were the ones who drove up the housing prices, creating a bubble. Investing so much that mortgage companies HAD to lend, even to those who could not pay their bills.
Who profited and who lost. Those who sat back comfortably in their fifth house (yes I know those people) benefited, maybe bought a new Mercedes. The people who lost? The ones who foreclosed, and that's a lot of people.
"The richest 1% ($400,000 or more) didn't work harder than the rest of us."
I know a few in this income category who indeed work very hard. They certainly don't spend most of their waking hours on a website complaining about everything.
WVK,
I know people who make $40,000 who also work very hard.
What I complain about, WVK, is when your big money special interests (who benefit from welfare) OWN our government and commit wars and torture innocent people in THEIR countries in MY name. NO THANK YOU.
PLEASE STOP THIS INSANITY and join the real world. Your ideology will be joining the dodo birds.
Hope to see you here more often.
They didn't start at $400,000+ but at one time earned $40,000 or less. Their success
had nothing to do with big money special interests, war or torture. And, as a result of their efforts, others have enjoyed success. Of course "success" is a dirty word to Progressives.
You have a different definition of "success" than I. Meanwhile you are trying to help make sure that someone making $40,000 has less and less opportunity to make a living.
Was money "earned" in a vacuum, or was assistance given at some point along the way?
Do you think paying hardworking employees a less-than-living wage, and then forcing them to spend it on taxes and fees and mandates which makes saving anything impossible while CEO's "earn" hundreds as much and offshore to cheap labor is ethical? I'll bet you love the disgusting term "human capital."
"Nothing to do with big money interests" ... Please be HONEST WVK!
Nothing to do with government for the rich? Please be HONEST.
"nothing to do with big money special interests, war or torture." WVK, it's not that "success" is a dirty word. It's about what all this "success" is making us all become. It's a process leading to ________________ ?
How about if you fill in the blank for us WVK?
Do you think people in this country, rich or poor, are living well and pursuing happiness?
WVK, TRUTH will set ALL of us free. If you do not believe this then what do you value instead?
The hierarchy/pyramid model made it possible for these people to "achieve" "success." No wealth can be generated without some input from all levels of labor along the way. No one makes it "on his/her own." Except in the financial legalized casinos:
there, the parasite players create fancy "instruments" like derivatives, nano-second computer-driven trading, etc. to amass, acquire their "self-made" fortunes.
The stock market itself should be abolished; the quarterly valuations are easily manipulated and many times work against the well-being of a good company--i.e. cutting jobs and raising prices for the consumer in order to satisfy their shareholders (aka the investor class, the 1%, the ruling corporocrats, etc).
"All heroin users at one time drank milk." WVK, your comment about 400K earners is thoroughly non-illuminating, just words. Please share what you think their success had "to do" with, and perhaps we can have a real conversation.
Based on the exhausted faces I see on the 86 bus to Garfield and Homewood, the people who work by far the hardest are the ones earning minimum wage. They die much younger, of overwork and worry, than any CEO too.
Betcha the rich guys like Horace or WVK have enver even ridden on the bus.
Rich?, I wish
Okay, so the engineers that design and develope the products the richfilth sell didn't start at $400,000 and they still aren't there. Business School 101...it's not what you know it's who you know. Effort and knowledge have absolutely nothing to do with income. What frat you belonged to in college does.
BTW, we are called progressives for a reason...we believe in progress, not the opposite.
We the innovators are sick and tired of you selling our work at our expense. I suggest you begin losing sleep really soon. What exactly do you plan to sell when nobody can afford the product of their own design?
Henry Ford was a lot more intelligent than today's business adminstration grads. At least he knew he had to have a market in which he could sell his product. Dumbfucks.
No, I'm sure they don't waste their time complaining about everything here. They more likely complain about everything behind closed doors at the White house, if this is the case do you think their complaining is gettting them anywhere? Do they get to complain for free or does it cost money to complain at this level?
I don't think the issue is whether or not you believe you work hard. The great inequality in our land is not created because the rich work harder and the poor are lazy and shiftless, it is the result of the complete failure of an idea called the "free market". The "level playing field" never actually existed. The large predators always destroy any semblance of "equal opportunity" in the name of competitive advantage. An unregulated market breeds oligarchs that work tirelessly for power, not money. Oligarchs do not like democracy. The wealthy elite are not comfortable in a society in which too much power rests with the people. They can and they do rig the system for their own benefit. The net result is election fraud, bribery, and free market bullshit.
Exactly! I have absolutely no objections to a TRUE free market. But, what we have here is government intervention in favor of some corporations over others. Why, for example, did Goldman-Sachs, BOA, Citigroup, and JP Morgan-Chase get government bailouts while Lehman Bros. didn't? Wasn't Lehman too big to fail also? Why do oil companies get by without paying royalties on pubic owned leases while they reap the greatest profits in history while literally destroying the ecosystem we all need to survive for their own profit?
True free markets would have seen BOA, Goldman-Sachs, AIG, Citigroup, and JP Morgan go bankrupt. BP would have been literally destroyed because of the damage they reaped on all of us. The stcckholders would have been fucked, as they should have for hiring such incompetant CEO's, and the whole bunch of thieves would have gone swirling down the toilet as turds should go. But no. Bu$h and Obummer had to save the shit for all of us to eat,which we continue to do to date. HAd the trillions spent on bonuses for worthless CEO's instead been used to trickle up through the economy, we would be seeing prosperity and growth, infrastructure revamping, and people earining a decent living. Instead, we got a few rich pigs richer, no growth, no jobs, and a show of the best marketing campaign in history to sell us "President" Obama...the biggest and sorriest joke of the millinium.
The crux of the issue.
Paris Hilton, for example.
How many articles can continue to make it amongst progressives who describe their group as 'victims'? If we who see there needs to be change for humanity to arise from the fall that is looming, how could we possibly be the victims? I refute this label outright. Any takers of the label say here here. This way it can be given a place to rest or it can be done away with once and for all. If there are victims though it seems more reasonable to see those in the 1% bracket as the victims. But what are they victims of? A form of cancer? A form of soulessness? A form of insanity?
I know a lot of low income people who work too hard.. most do, in fact. It is a rough life today for most people.
As for taxing the wealthy... the greatest obstacle we have in striving for a better society.. eg. one which is educated, healthy, and has opportunities for advancement, is in the disparity in incomes. The 1st American revolution was fought against hereditary rulership from the aristocracy. Reading the words of revolutionary figures, it becomes clear that they knew full well that kings are a poor substitute for common rulership for the general welfare. Democratic control is the advanced governance over feudalism. The people need more control, more ownership. That is capitalism for the masses.
So, we have to get rid of the aristocracy, ... by any means at all .. first, so that the rights of the people can be again the goals of America as it used to be. Long live the 2nd American revolution. I hope that it is peaceful, but also, successful.
A peaceful revolution in America would only change the political leadership from one group of puppets to another group of puppets. All true revolutions which upset the political and economic systems have to incorporate some level of violence because power never gives up without a struggle and the ruling class always uses the police forces and militaries in last ditch efforts to stay in control. Sad but true.
I may not be very representative of the average poster on this site, but speaking for myself I'd be quite happy living in a Finnish-style social democracy -- where citizens enjoy universal health care, a highly-progressive tax structure (fees for traffic violations that are scaled to the amount of income you earn is one of my favorites!), and serious commitments to a high-quality environment and educational system.
And ... they accomplish that with minimal interference of individual rights to free speech and free assembly.
Most of those progressive gains in Finland, and elsewhere in Scandanavia, have been achieved since WWII. I'm not aware of any major revolutions -- violent or otherwise -- that were required to get there. They evolved mostly through incremental change over a series of decades.
... which is not to say that should be the way in the U.S. Maybe sudden, radical, truly revolutionary change is desirable. However, given the present immature, nacissistic, and generally uninformed mindset of this country, I'm very pessimistic the American public could be expected to embrace such sudden, radical changes. Just look how much trouble they've had getting used to being ruled by a non-white President with an unconventional background.
I'm more optimistic that incremental change could happen, as it happened in Scandanavia.