Five Ugly Extremes of Inequality in America-- The Contrasts Will Drop Your Chin to the Floor

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/five-ugly-extremes-inequality-america-contrasts-will-drop-your-chin-floor

***SNIP

1. $2.13 per hour vs. $3,000,000.00 per hour

Each of the Koch brothers saw his investments grow by $6 billion in one year, which is three million dollars per hour based on a 40-hour 'work' week. They used some of the money to try to kill renewable energystandards around the country.

***SNIP

2. A single top income could buy housing for every homeless person in the U.S.

On a winter day in 2012 over 633,000 people were homeless in the United States. Based on an annual single room occupancy (SRO) cost of $558 per month, any ONE of the ten richest Americans would have enough with his 2012 income to pay for a room for every homeless person in the U.S. for the entire year. These ten rich men together made more than our entire housing budget.

***SNIP

3. The poorest 47% of Americans have no wealth

In 1983 the poorest 47% of America had $15,000 per family, 2.5 percent of the nation's wealth.

In 2009 the poorest 47% of America owned ZERO PERCENT of the nation's wealth (their debt exceeded their assets).

***SNIP

4. The U.S. is nearly the most wealth-unequal country in the entire world

Out of 141 countries, the U.S. has the 4th-highest degree of wealth inequality in the world, trailing only Russia, Ukraine, and Lebanon.

[Quantess]

1. USA now more unequal than Mexico?

I remember a few years ago, our wealth inquality was near Mexico's, but slightly more evenly divided than Mexico's.

[Egalitarian Thug]

2. What to do? (from the article)

End the capital gains giveaway, which benefits the wealthy almost exclusively.

Institute a Financial Speculation Tax, both to raise needed funds from a currently untaxed subsidy on stock purchases, and to reduce the risk of the irresponsible trading that nearly brought down the economy.

Perhaps above all, we progressives have to choose one strategy and pursue it in a cohesive, unrelenting attack on greed. Only this will heal the ugly gash of inequality that has split our country in two.

[NewJeffCT]

7. But, the job creators must have more, more, more

Look how many jobs the job creator millionaires and billionaires have created the past 12 years when their taxes have been at historic lows! It will start trickling down any day now. I'm sure of it!

[HughBeaumont]

8. The "Defenders of the Faith-Based" really don't have a leg to stand on at this point.

Saying that a 32-years-running myth just "needs a little more time to work" . . . yeah, they're about ready for the straitjacket, I think.

[ReRe]

3. Yeah...

K&R

... but "We're the greatest country in the world!"

[valerief]

15. The Land of Opportunity--for the wealthiest of the wealthy. nt

[brer cat]

4. Does anyone know the source of these facts?

I would like to use them, but would like to know their sources.

[Cleita]

6. I find most of those stats pretty verifiable.

Any of the money mags will give you the wage numbers for instance.

[DaveJ]

19. Not only verifiable, but conservatives love those numbers.

They somehow see no problem with income inequality, they actually brag about it.

They make up slogans like "a poor person never gave me a job."

Actually a rich person never gave me a decent job either. If you ask most rich people they live by the philosophy that if they paid their employees generously, they wouldn't be rich for long. They usually get rich by taking advantage of people.

[Cleita]

23. I had a woman at the gym tell me the homeless should get jobs.

I told her that many do have jobs that are so low paying they have to sleep in their cars, if they have one. I also added that for every job in our area hundreds of people show up for one job. She said she didn't believe it. I told her I read about it in our local fish wrapper "The Tribune", which is pretty right wing but sometimes they tell the truth about local stuff. Another stat is that the number of homeless children in our county could fill an elementary school, but I added she would never know that because all she watches is Fox News.

My most generous employers also, were small business people, who were not millionaires or large corporations. They may have started out cheap, but raised my wages as they got to appreciate my work. The worst paying jobs I had were with banks and big box stores and I wasn't good enough at office politics to get the promotions.

[progressoid]

28. "We need poor people"

I heard that one at a party once. I was too tired (and a little drunk) to even deal with such stupidity.

[Cleita]

29. Mind boggling what people believe when they reveal themselves and

it makes me wonder how they are wired. It's really more than just brainwashing and propaganda.

[lumberjack_jeff]

34. The rich guy's customers are the only ones who ever gave me a job. n/t

[HiPointDem]

37. funny that as inequality grows, jobs grow fewer and worse. we basically plateaued on job

growth in 2000.

[progressoid]

27. There are hotlinks to the data at the alternet story.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

5. K & R

And bookmarked for future reference.

[Purplehazed]

9. The number one GOP talking point.......

is to give the wealthy more because they are the job creators. They never quantify that argument. Graph below is from 2011.


&width=600

[valerief]

16. +1

[Purplehazed]

17. And another thing.....

As an ex-Koch employee. (They bought the company I worked for) My job was axed where the graph drops between 2008 and 2009. Even though 1, the position that I took was "the future" of the company and 2, Employees were supposed to be allowed to apply for other positions when their position/program was being eliminated under the "free market" management rules.

The shows a decline in Koch brothers wealth after 2008. It's likely due to lower real estate values, lower stock market and the plunge in oil prices at the the time. Koch is a huge energy trader.

So how did they make it up you might wonder??? Axing 10,000 employees to start. Nearly doubling the employees contributions for health care. Increasing healthcare deductible to $2500. Using a cheap health care provider that only was accepted at a hospital 30 miles away from where most people lived. Eliminating cost of living increases. Eliminating a pay for skill program. Freezing salary raises for years. Extending payments to vendors to net 90 days or else there were monetary penalties.

I'll never forget the meeting as the HR person explained to us with a straight face that if anyone went up to the mountains to go skiing (about 100 miles away) we had to be aware that the local hospital there did not take our health care plan. So if we broke a leg or suffered some medical condition, we had to tell the ambulance driver to drive us 100 miles to the hospital that did take our insurance.

[HughBeaumont]

20. They each increased their net worths by 10 BILLION after 2008. EACH.

For all of the campaigning the Kochs do against President Obama, it's quite a canyon leap to say that these Ovarian Lottery Winner piglets are suffering under him.

[Cleita]

30. Yes, I was told that with all assurance that this was the case by someone.

I said maybe for housekeepers, gardeners, and horse groomers but other than that, no. But the person argued that the big corporations hire people and I said yes, but most of them are moving or have moved their operations overseas. That is why unemployment is so high and wages are low. Ooooh, she said that I was right. Well, one win or at least giving that person something to think about, out of 10 I can't move away from their Fox News information bank.

[SmileyRose]

39. Facebooked tweeted and shared

perfect visual.

[loudsue]

10. That is obscene. And it's wrong.

And the Koch brothers are buying our government with their filth.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

11. U.S. 98 in Palm Beach County, Florida

It begins at the Atlantic Ocean in Palm Beach, Florida among some of largest and most oppulent mansions you will ever see.

A mere 40 mile drive west will land you in Belle Glade, Florida, a town comprised largely of poor immigrant sugar harvesters, where you will not believe the type of impovrished conditions that people live in.

[WillyT]

12. K & R !!!

[woo me with science]

13. K&R

[jybarz]

14. CONGRATULATIONS, KOCH BROTHERS & GOP!

Well done! You guys have made it happen. I believe you still want more tax cuts and entitlement cuts to pay for more tax cuts? OMG you're so shameless, low life people... I mean voracious ANIMALS!

[redqueen]

18. K&R

[HiPointDem]

21. kr

[one_voice]

22. K&R

[Blue Owl]

24. Their greed knows no limits

Remember when this land was your land?

Now, this land is pretty much their land...

[woo me with science]

25. kick

[Kingofalldems]

26. K and R for all the Cave visitors

[Dragonfli]

31. I hate this, I know it is true and growing even worse, It will soon be worse than a Dickens novel

I am feeling beyond frustrated, beyond desperate, I am beginning to hate more and more and I hate that too.

So much poverty for so many
So much wealth for so few

And I get to watch as most Democrats and Nearly, if not all, Republicans keep pushing for more of the same

Rationalizing torture camps kept alive, I assume for profit to various contractors, and seeing it come from what I once thought was my side, of course the Republicans love it as well. They do so love a good profit.

Watching my side again with enthusiastic Republican agreement continue to take apart the safety net with a special determination to steal the trust fund that was the last solid part of that safety net

Watching as both parties ignore the very real very pressing problem of a climate that is changing in such a way that our species will no longer be able to survive here, and oddly I feel the most sorrow for all the other far more innocent critters that like us will no longer be able to survive, that fact has begun to scare me, I am starting to reek of a self loathing directed at my own species. I can no longer answer the question, "what the fuck good are we to this world?"

Most of us are poor, or soon will be, and so many cheer this on because of hero worship, or in the case of Republicans pure unending insatiable greed.

I have to admit, I think it's all over but for the shouting
and I have become little more than yet one more shrill, desperate voice shouting at shadows made of hero's or ideology or anything but something solid I can actually fight.

That too is part of the plan, that there is nothing solid we can fight.
But to what end? I can only see it ending with a dozen of the wealthiest people the world has ever known drinking one last glass of champagne while standing on the corpses of the rest of humanity as the earth's ability to support our form of life flickers and is gone.

The last, wealthiest few, the wealthiest the world will have ever known will die winners, but what is the fucking prize?


I need to step away from here, screaming at the inevitable is killing me, I need to take a break from the humans in my life as well, the only fit company I can see that I have access to is my 13 year old dog. She is a good dog, so very much better than most humans, and no one will listen to her either. She is the sanest person I know, all that is left to learn that is worth learning I can learn from her.

[HiPointDem]

33. it's not inevitable, and nothing lasts forever. truth will out; there comes a point when people

can't deny the evidence of their senses. propaganda only goes so far when it doesn't have some roots in reality.

du can be a downer, but you can find some like-minded people near you and do things in real space -- that can be more positive than mixing it up at DU, which is a bubble in its own way.

[Dragonfli]

35. You are right about much of what you have said, the other part of the story

Is how badly the good fight is going here, in the real world, in my blue collar working man's city.

We are losing ground, entire neighborhoods that were once what I suppose you would call blue collar lower middle class have fallen to despair and poverty. People are working harder than ever, like they did for generations, because their moms and dads did and work was the way to not be poor and even own a small house, maybe send your kid to college.

People are working as hard as people can and so many have already lost their family homes, and are barely surviving and paying rent on hovels they will never own, and would go hungry were it not for food stamps. Entire large neighborhoods have fallen into this hell of poverty. The worst part is that they are so busy working harder and downgrading where they can afford to rent and losing more and more ground that they have no time to fight, no time to even learn who or what the enemy is, it is not apathy, but pure exhaustion. Seeing this makes it appear quite inevitable, i and others have tried to be active, but most have no time to listen let alone help to fight back, what little time they do have is spent trying to figure out how to pay bills with less money per month than the bills add up to.

Another thing I have noticed is that the surrounding suburbs are producing cold people that refuse to even notice, they are becoming afraid of every one not middle class and have decided to dislike us, shun us, blame us and assume we all stopped working rather than working harder as is the reality. These people that have some time to learn and to fight are living in a bubble and believe every third way faux Democrat talking point they hear, they think Obama is too good to us that are not of Amherst, or Williamsville or the countless other 'burbs around here, they are either Republican Or New Democrats that think we need to cut food stamps, and appear to think that if they even talk to us serfs, the cooties will rub off on them, ironically they are doing less well also, but they appear to have decided that those of us that are blue collar are to blame for their losses, so they blindly follow the policies that hurt them as much as the rest of us, just in slow motion.

They are perfect little third way Democrats, or far right Republicans.
I hope what I am watching live helps you to understand why I am becoming so negative.

[HiPointDem]

36. not so different from my blue-collar town. used to be heavily union with lots of jobs, it went

south under reagan and has been declining ever since. few jobs, low-paid, ubiquitious drug culture, and a lot of the people running the town wedded to the corporate/winger pov, acting like people aren't working because they're lazy (we have 10% UE). i understand what you're saying from my own experiences.

but not all those suburban people are doing that great either; i'd bet there are some who see things as you do.

despair paints everything black and prevents us from seeing our openings and our allies. i'm susceptible to it too, but that's what the rulers want.

take a break from DU, but don't give them what they want.

[woo me with science]

32. Yep, this is the distribution of wealth in which Obama and corporate Democrats

Last edited Tue Mar 26, 2013, 01:27 AM - Edit history (1)

lecture us that our safety nets need to be cut.

[woo me with science]

38. kick