America's 1% Has Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%

Agree! That someone earns a dollar does not mean I lost a dollar, crazy think.

 

I'm trying to understand how this 50 trillion was taken. Was it stolen. Was it taken with taxes? Was it taken with pay cuts? Was it taken with price increases? Can you be a bit more specific about how exactly this occurred?

From the data we have seen that incomes for the wealthy went up a lot since the late 70s, while it has only gone up modestly for everyone else when factoring in inflation. But because of the 2000 and 2008 crashes which hurt investments, the wreathy saw their gains slow considerably in the 21st century.

 

People that complain about capitalism have never owned a business. They could not possibly know what it takes to run a profitable business because they have never known the true value of making a profit nor what it actually means.

 

Why didn't you just read the article? I also explained it in my first post.

Wages for the bottom 70% have been stagnant since the 70s. See the bottom 4 lines:

 

How could we have had money taken away, if we haven't lost any money. You just said wages were stagnant, not decreasing.

 

The Democrat Party has taught us over the years that there is more profit in poverty and exploitation of minorities and inner city urbanites than in any other endeavor. This is why you will never see a Republican big city the size of New York City or Chicago. I find it humorous that you are raging over an age-old Democrat policy like this; they’ve been doing it since pre-Civil War slavery.

 

You would've received a lot more money had wages not stagnated.

95% Of Income Gains Since 2009 Went To The Top 1% — Business Insider

^^
Do you understand this number?

 

They didn't take it from us, we gave it to them. You too. How much did you give them for your phone?

 

So you hate success?

 

The single theme is wealth concentration. You're telling me that I shouldn't try to explain why this is happening.

 

What about success for the bottom 99%?

 

taking wealth from the top ten percent won't help that. Right now-information and technology are the keys to being wealthy in the USA. We cannot pretend that people with a HS education doing labor at 5X the pay that an equally qualified worker in Vietnam or Pakistan will do, is a ticket to a comfortable lifestyle. And taking wealth from those who earn it is counterproductive-even if its a good way for politicians to pander to those who aren't productive

 

But this isn't money taken from me. This is extra profits that simple didn't go to me. There is a big difference here.

Another thing you have to consider is that working class people tend to do most of the consumption. If you shifted an extra $10,000 to the workers from the wealthy, all that would result in is housing prices going up, and consumer goods prices going up. Just look what happened to California when high paid tech workers moved in. If supply is the same, people having more paper money will just be a form of inflation, and prices will go up accordingly. And rich people will just flee the country. There is the reason Europe isn't the center of business and innovation.

 

Yes but the devil is in the details. And one cannot ignore variables. Like not earning enough to.invest because your labor , does not pay enough to have a surplus. Because jobs that paid a surplus were sent to China because of cents on the.dollar labor. Yet these jobs once were worth much more . Greed changed that. Our founders didn't force us to compete with poverty workers..

Devilish details. Greed is devilish. And top dogs, sociopaths want it all.

 

Do the math. A capitalist buys $100 worth of raw materials for his chair factory. His employee uses those raw materials to build the chair, adding $100 in value. The owner sells the chair the worker made for $200. Out of that, the owner uses $100 to replace the raw materials used for the chair, gives $50 to the worker who made it and keeps the remaining $50. Notice that the worker added $100 in value to the chair but only received $50 for his effort.

 

I said nothing of the sort, please reread my comment, I'm making a suggestion on how to improve the caliber of your OP. But you should make the argument, not let screen shots do it for you, that's meme'ing. That's not the way to do it. Be an essayist, back up your position with links, abstain from memes as much as possible. On occasion, for color, but don't over do it.


Note that one does not have to be a Marxist to indicate the concentration of wealth issues of laissez-faire.libertarian capitalism.

One can avoid the concentration of wealth via a regulated capitalism. Just get rid of the laissez-faire.libertarian from the equaltion,

Wolff's premise, and especially Chomsky's premise, is that all corporations are fascist dictatorships and workers in such places are indentured servants.

I don't accept that premise at all , and I find that too extreme to be even remotely palatable for the American electorate.

That kind of talk will not fly in America. But, you can try.

 

Having been in business, myself, I can speak with authority the flaw in your premise.

First, let's get somethng straight, the retail 'value' of a product, is set by the market for that product. The trick is, 'can it be produced for less than the retail, such that every concerned can be compensated and be happy'.

If worker provides, say $100 or retail value for an employer, and pays the employee $50.
As long as that wage is fair market value, and more than enough for him to live on, and a wage commensurate with his skill, that's all that matters.

Maybe he could pay him $60, or whatever they bargain for.

However, if an employer pays the employee 100% of the retail price, he will go out of business and put everyone out of work.

See, the employer puts up his capital, or that of investors, and they deserve a return on that investment.

Without a system like that, who is going to be an entrepreneur? Who is going to invest? Who wil want to design a better widget and bring it to market? A bunch of marxists?

I don't think so.

now, in some places, shares are offered to workers, and I'm fine with that, but with one share, one gets one vote, and that's as it should be in the corporate structure.


These 'worker syndicates' described by Chomsky and Wolff, might work in some small time community, or Kibbutz, but when
an enterprise scales up, things get far more complex, and simplistic models just do not work in the real world.

Let's not put marxists in charge of business enterprises, if that's their logic.

However, I'm all for reforming the corporate structure. the system as it is now, is manipulated by computers and lighting fast trades, which I think have no place in the market.

 

No thanks. I have a better shot with conservatives. Liberals are too heavily wed to the status quo. MLK said liberals are the greatest impediment to change.

 

BINGO!

 

Absolutely NOTHING is stopping you from implementing this model.

 

Why do you think it's happening? Progressive Leftists and their Welfare State, lead the masses to believe they didn't have to strive to have a great life. That they were entitled to it just by accident of birth (in the privileged First World).

 

the point I was making is I hear the SJWs whining that the rich keep getting richer. But they never want to deal with the alternative. If the RICH are not GETTING Richer, it means investments that pay a return no longer exist. and that means anyone with a pension or a 401K is screwed.

 

Tax rates are not responsible.
The FED is.
Oddly, the FED a core plank of Marx's manefesto, consolidating the wealth to the government and its corporatists, forcing the people into state/corporatist slavery.
Apparently, you approve

 

Today's poor are far better off than those of the 30' and 40's. Even poor families have multiple cars and televisions. America's poor population are among the wealthiest people in the world.

 

When the worker went through the hiring process with the owner, they successfully negotiated their wage. They are paid that wage. If you don't think it's enough, say so in the interview. Don't agree to a wage and then "change your mind" later and expect the owner to pay it.