Wealth Patterns

[vision]

Last night after replying to the tread on income taxes I came across this web site. http://www.inequality.org/facts2.html#wealth
I think that it tells more about the struggle going on between the halves and have-nots than almost anything.

America is a great place to live but I think that most would agree that it could be better. How to make it better is the question.

I think that Dems generally approach it from the stance that since we all live here it is the responsibility of all to help make it better and support it. And many believe that if you have more wealth that it is your responsbility to provide more than those who cannot. A tweak of the "With great power, comes great responsibilites." Kennedy said it best "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country."

Republicans on the other hand seem to believe that society should serve them. They seemingly have no concerns about wealth helping those with wealth but do with that same wealth helping those who do not have any.

The top 20%, those who make $250,000 or more, hold over 83% of all the wealth in the USA. Why shouldn't these people step up and uphold thier responsibilites and pay 83% of all taxes?

Instead the surplus that have been used to fund tax cuts recently have largerly come from a surplus in FICA taxes collected. Does it make sense to cut the top rates when that is not where the surpluses have come from?

The Wealth patterns show that the wealthy will continue to get richer and the poor, poorer unless the wealthy step up and pay thier fair share.

[leftofthedial]

1. this is the rotten core of all that divides us politically

This is unsustainable.

Either that or democracy is unsustainable.

[leftyandproud]

5. my experience

I have some conservative friends who said they would have no problem accepting this argument--IF, we would only define "fair share" What exactly is one's "fair share"? What is the rate? If we lay out some specifics, we can end the debate.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

2. This is a message

that needs to get out. Notice how the phrase "class warfare" is brought up now and then and usually by the GOP? They are doing the proverbial pre-emptive strike.
What people really need to know is that we are not on the earth for the purposes of making money. No acknowledged spiritual leader has EVER said that.
We can go to any religion and see why the phrase "love of money is the root of all evil" is so true. They all preach a message of brotherhood and compassion.
That message gets twisted into something so vile and sleazy, and yet so often accepted, that we live with this every day.
We are not here to "work hard and make money". Besides, most often we work hard to make someone else money. :)
We are here to experience being here. Once you let go of the idea that you MUST have money to be happy or secure, POOF! The illusion goes away.
Yes, sadly, those in power continue to stay in power by exploiting the rest of us with this message. All the while, they gain more and more wealth while we worry about the credit card payment and getting the kids a new pair of shoes........

[RichM]

3. Your general point is good & important (but your numbers look wrong!)

- Certainly the "top 20%" are not those making $250k or more. You must mean top 1% or so.

- The data source at inequality.org is the research of Edward Wolff of NYU. He is the same source that Kevin Phillips uses in "Wealth & Democracy," and that the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) uses in their top-notch discussions of the fundamental problems of wealth inequality in the US.

- When you say, "The top XX% hold 83% of the wealth; why shouldn't they pay 83% of the taxes" : There are several points here, whatever the right numbers actually are.

First, the US tax is based on income, not wealth ( = "net worth")

Nonetheless, your basic idea is very fair. However,

When the wealthy declare their income, they still did generally pay a higher marginal rate of tax on it up until 1986, when the rates for the highest income earners ("zillionaires") was made less than the rate for medium-high earners (maybe $150K or so). Some years ago, rates on capital gains was dropped to only 20%; now I think it's just been dropped to 15%. These outrages of course make rich people taxed less than ordinary working people, but that's not the end of it, because:
- ordinary people don't get to use tax shelters
- ordinary people don't get to buy congressmen to make laws to their own advantage
- in recent years, the IRS has been auditing the rich less & less, while it's auditing the poor more & more. (Gotta catch those welfare & Earned Income Tax Credit cheats!! But let Ken Lay hang out unmolested in the Cayman Islands.)

Any worthwhile political analysis MUST take the distribution of wealth in society as its starting point. This is one of the reasons why conventional discussions of American politics are such a bunch of bullshit: it pretends that the D.O.W. doesn't have to be taken into account. Once a blanket of silence is thrown over a huge thing like that, whatever follows is basically just irrelevant chattering.

When Gore tried to say in 2000 that Bush's tax plan would give 40% of its benefit to the richest 1%, the reaction was intriguing. Naturally, the GOP fascists accused him of "class warfare" -- and as usual for the intelligence-disadvantaged US public, this was sufficient to shut down discussion. Moreover: it seemed that the public DID NOT REALLY MIND this assertion. It was as though they didn't really understand it (maybe too many statistics involved -- them thar statistics is sho'nuff confusin'!).

[vision]

9. If it is only the top 1%

that hold so much wealth instead of 20% than it is even more outrageous. The recent census seems to imply that the top 20% would not make 250,000+ but instead $75,000!
http://factfinder.census.gov/bf/_lang=en_vt_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_DP3_geo_id=01000US.html

How ever the distribution is I think more effort should be made to point out how it is unequally spead out. This would make many of the robber barons of the Middle Ages drool with envy.

AARP has some info also http://research.aarp.org/econ/dd44_wealth.html

Ironically
Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, make the case for wealth:
"Ultimately, we are interested in the question of relative standards of living and economic well-being. We need to examine trends in the distribution of wealth, which, more fundamentally than earnings or income, represents a measure of the ability of households to consume."
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm

[rman]

4. top 0.1% and 0.01% are even more interesting

Paul Krugman:
rtsp://real.dialnsa.edu/REAL_BEARD/spring2003_events/schwartz.rm

"... If we are polarized country politically it might well be at least in part is because we are polarized country economically.
What has been happening is a extraordinary pulling apart of the income distribution.
Traditionally people look at income distribution by "quintiles", by blocks of 20%. But that is not where the action is. It is not in the top 10%, it is not even in the top 5%.

To really see what is going on you need to look at the top 1%, the top 0.1% and the top 0.01%. Then you discover that there has been an explosion of income on the very top of the scale:

top 1%
1970 9%
2000 22%

top 0.1%
1970 2.8%
2000 11%

top 0.01%
1970 1%
2000 5%

We are by these numbers fully back to and by some measures above the level of concentration of income that we had in the 1920's."

[recidivist]

6. I have a guaranteed way to reduce the inequality that even the Repubs ...

... will support.

But I'm not going to tell you, because it just makes people mad.:)

[camero]

7. The fallacy of the self-made millionaire

First, it is the government that sets up the infrastructure, educates the workers, and gives the breaks on taxes and municipal bonds, etc, so the rich can get and maintain their wealth.

Second, It is the talent of the workers that help to build and maintainn their products and services so they can become even more wealthy.

Third, it is the consumers, who are also their workers, who buy the products and services that helps the rich get and maintain their wealth.

The economy is too interdependent to say that any one man (or woman) actually makes it on their own.

[southernfried]

8. but its the rich who figured out how to build the better mousetrap

and selected those workers to execute his ideas. And not everyone gets tax breaks or the like. Most have to put a personal stake into their business. As to the consumer, he has a choice to buy or not to buy and from whom.

This is not a fallacy. I know lots of them.

[Kenneth ken]

11. It may not be a fallacy

but it is not a universal truth either.

I know a person who invented a great product. Unfortunately, he needed investors to help take it from idea to production. The investors now own the larger portion of the company, and garner the larger share of the profits.

And there are many, many examples like Micheal Eisner; he didn't invent Disney, but he sure is reaping a lot of profit off it.

[Yupster]

10. Does the Kennedy quote have any meaning at all?.

because all I ever hear are people saying what they want the government to do for them. And most of those people are applauded here and everywhere else.

"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

I want free daycare. I want smaller class sizes. I want free health insurance. I want a tax cut. Help me build my factory. Feed my kids lunch. Help me buy my medicines. Help me pay my rent. Pay for my college. Subsidize my subway. Pay me not to grow corn. Pay for my abortion.

It seems like half the people think this quote only applies to the rich and they should contribute almost nothing to the nation's budget, but present a lengthy list of demands of what more they want.

The other half wants to do less for the nation and wants to contribute less, and then there's the group of super-rich who wants to do less and wants government help in their giant projects too. And then there's the relatively tiny group of trust fund families
(like the Kennedys and Rockefellers) who talk about the rich needing to pay more income tax, while their family's wealth is tied up in trust funds where it's wealth, not income. To me they are the worst because they get applauded for talking about contributing more while their wealth is securely tucked out of reach.

That's my rant for the night.

[wuushew]

12. Even Kennedy's and Rockefellers die

That where so the so-called death taxes are supposed to kick in. I am certain that Senator Kennedy voted against that. Lets not forget that Gates and Buffet also favored not reducing inheritence taxes.

[recidivist]

13. Bill Clinton also proposed a serious remedy to the inequality.

Unfortunately, he didn't press the idea, but it was a good one anyhow. Anybody remember what it was?

Hint: It was the same method I had in mind in #6. Great minds think alike....:)