The Truth Is We Don't Have Enough Money To Take Care Of Our People.

[TheMastersNemesis]

The uber rich have almost all of it. And the GOP is determined to make sure it stays that way. They support poisoned water, poisoned air and a ruined planet as long as a Republican is not hurt.

[mgmaggiemg]

1. you have that right

[berniepdx420]

2. oh ..we have enough money...it's just all concentrated in a few pockets stashed away in offshore

accounts..BUT luckily "we are many and they are few..." We are the economy...we create jobs... we buy the goods... we can have a Political Revolution...

[brush]

4. Agreed. The humongous income inequality here will not last, just as it never has historically

They can hunker down in their gated compounds, or even flee to their huge, purchased swaths of land in foreign countries, but it will not last.

It won't be tumbrils in this century, but something will come for them.

[In_The_Wind]

3. Will Social Security turn into a ponzie.

[hfojvt]

5. sorry but that is not true

actually I am not sorry.

Per capita GDP in 2013 was $53,000.

The Uber rich have very little of that. Perhaps 10% of our national income is going to the top 0.1%. If it is even fair to call those 100,000 households "uber" rich.

That leaves 90% for the rest of us. A per capita GDP of $47,700 for the 309 million of us. That's $14.7 trillion dollars.

Go ahead and include the rest of the legendary 1% in the UBER rich, even though that becomes 1,000,000 households. They have, at most 25% of the national income. Now per capita GDP for the "99 percent" is "only" $39,750, and there are only 307 million of us in the 99%. That still leaves 12.2 trillion dollars.

The real truth is that the vast majority of the legendary 99% does NOT consider the whole group to be OUR people.

The reason I mock the whole notion of the legendary 1% is because it advances the absurd idea that there is solidarity (or that there could be) among the 99%. It advances the absurd notion that people in the top 4% (by which I mean the top 5% without the top 1%) are in the same boat with people in the bottom 5%.

You know who has most of the money? First of all - the top 10%. They have about 50% of the national income. But the whole breakdown looks like this (approximately (it changes from year to year and depends on how you measure things))

top 0.1% - 10%
top 0.9% - 12%
top 9% - 28%
next 40% - 37%
bottom 50% - 13%

Lots of people in the top 50% do not give a rat's a$$ about most people in the bottom 50%. Imagine taking a poll of the "next 40%". Ask them to reduce their share of income to 35% so that the bottom 50% can move up to 15%. My guess is that they would vote it down about 70% to 30%.

But, after all, those people are not THAT well off. They can barely afford payments on their boats. Ask rather the top 9% to reduce their share to 26% so that the bottom 50% can be raised to 15%. Chances are good that even those rich people will vote no.

In fact, even though they have more income than 90% of their fellow Americans, many of them will loudly proclaim "I am NOT rich."

Never mind that they have a larger share of the national income than even the top 0.1% to say nothing of the uber rich. They buy expensive houses and expensive cars for themselves and then feel like they don't have any money.