Five Facts About America's Pathological Wealth Distribution

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/03



***SNIP

1. We're close to being the most unequal country in the world.

Among countries with at least a quarter-million adults, only Russia, Ukraine, and Lebanon are more unequal, according to the most recent figures from Credit Suisse Research.


***SNIP


2. Wealth accumulation has been rigged for the rich.

The richest quintile of Americans owns 93% of non-home wealth. For Americans with incomes over $10 million, nearly half of their income comes from capital gains and dividends, on most of which they pay only a 15% tax. From 2002 to 2007, two-thirds of all income went to the richest 1%. Then, in the first year after the recession, a startling 93% of all new income went to the richest 1%.

***SNIP

3. As tax rates have gone down, income for the rich has gone up.

A Business Insider chart depicts the remarkable - yet reasonable - negative correlation between tax rates and the wealth of the super-rich. Over the past hundred years, every time tax rates have been decreased, the income percentage of the richest .01% has increased, and vice versa. Other sources confirm that changes in the tax rate have little to do with economic growth, and that the top tax rate can - and should - be much higher, up to 83%.

***SNIP


4. "We should all cheer for the stock market" is a big scam.

The mainstream media would have us believe that the whole country depends on a rising stock market. But the lowest-earning three-fifths of Americans -- 60% of the population -- own just .2% (one-fifth of one percent) of all wealth outside the home.

[Egalitarian Thug]

1. K&R. n/t

[Coyotl]

2. The stock market is an indicator of the dollar's value

just like the oil price. Oil is the real currency today!

Are your stocks going up or is the dollar going down?

Is your factory really worth more, or does it just take more dollars to buy it than before?