New research reveals truth about inequality: When the rich get richer, everyone loses

Guess what has happened after every recession... Job growth... fact is this one has seen the weakest growth. Of course if we didn't have government spending nearly a trillion we wouldn't have had any growth!
http://reason.com/archives/2013/04/15/down-the-drain/2

CBO disagrees with your sentiment.... or at least admits the truth. Nobody can be sure of what the Stimulus really did. So don't call it a success. In fact the CBO has said that in the long run the debt created by it will be a drag on the economy in the future. Would have been better to do nothing at all.

How about we let people decide if they want to use SS as their main retirement vehicle or not.

My point is that Democrats suck just as much as Republicans, both help the rich over anyone else. Democrats just have better PR.

Its hurt millions as well. So lets celebrate!! And no Republicans if given power would have done some big goverment crap just as bad, maybe just a little less horrible. I don't support them either.

Because you won't critically think.

Name 1 thing Democrats have done... and don't say Obamacare which guarantees insurance companies their profits... and not the people get healthcare. Just insurance. Remember Insurance doesn't equal care.

Economies always recover after recessions, despite what governments do... why? because people the main drivers of the economy always want to do better for themselves. Trade doesn't stop because Republicans or Democrats have power or didn't give money to a bunch of their consituents. But it does stop when politicians start passing laws and regulations limiting trade and blocking entry to market.

Your right its all according to plan, swithc power from side to side which both end up doing the same thing. Put up a fake front for the simple minded idiots who believe that one side cares more about them than the other. meanwhile the big (*)(*)(*)(*) they want ot get done, such as raising taxes, invading other countries, enlarging government, increasing regulations and making themselves richer goes unabaided. But by all means blame the R's. We all know the D's are Saints.

No thanks ill write them a letter telling them to lower taxes on everyone... let people keep what they earn, stop spending money on corporate welfare, wars on drugs and other countries and to start using the money they do take in more wisely. But I know... Im a crazy extremist.

 

Soooo... the mainstream thought was that inequality doesn't matter? How much did they pay these economists to say those things?

 

Merely playing by the rules does not (and should not) guarantee success. Making good life decisions plays a big part too. Whenever you have a people who can choose their own path, you will have winners and losers. The difference between the two is the path chosen.

 

If the left cares so much please tell me what have y'all done about the 1% when the Dems controlled congress? Show me how the left put a stop it. Show me the massive laws set into place by the left to curb the 1%ers. I will wait.

 

" Inequality doesn't matter ( as long as we have all the money ) "

 

Inequality is a side-effect of liberty. The rich getting richer has not had one negative impact on my ability to earn. My boss has never said to me "You're paycheck is a little light this month because the rich folks are taking too much." There is no 'Pie' from which everyone takes slices. You bake your own pie.

 

You're dismissing the main point that the top 50% pay a disproportionate chunk of the overall taxes. And it's disproportionate as a comparison to overall income as you go up the income ladder, and more proportionate as you go down the ladder. The discussion is about taxes and who is carrying the burden. There comes a tipping point where you continue to raise taxes on the upper income levels while lowering them for the lower income levels where the burden gets pushed higher and higher; which is morally unfair. And this not because there is any real purpose to solve the income disparity, but more because liberals have a problem with people making a lot of money. Liberals think it’s unfair anyone should amass so much wealth. Well, punishing them with higher taxes does not do anything to solve the income disparity. It does nothing to punish the wealthy. Liberals even admit they can afford to pay more taxes; meaning it does nothing to accomplish their goal.

I think people have lost sight of this fact about our government: It is not the role of government to use taxes as a tool to punish or attempt to somehow balance the playing field. The playing field will never be balanced or fair. Those who work and produce will always have; those who don’t won’t. There is nothing government can do or should do to change that. If you want it to be more unfair, let government try to ‘fix’ it.

 

I suppose you can provide some sort of proof to this. With the emergence of mutual funds I think this probably no longer true. But even if it were true, so what? Why is this so important to you that the wealthy can afford to invest and those that aren’t are less able? What could you possibly do about it?

I don't get this class warfare mentality, that you place so much trust in the government to deal with these issues? Government will only ensure that the wealthy will more disproportionately horded to one place - the government - and away from those that actually earned it and those that need it.

 

the top one percent of households have 35% of all privately held stock, 64.4% of financial securities, and 62.4% of business equity. The top ten percent have 81% to 94% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and almost 80% of non-home real estate.
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

The richest 10 percent of families own about 85 percent of all outstanding stocks. They own about 85 percent of all financial securities, 90 percent of all business assets.
http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03may/may03interviewswolff.html

In 2009, this top 1 percent of U.S. households owned 35.6 percent of the nation’s private wealth. - See more at: http://inequality.org/wealth-inequality/#sthash.MSNi7UGU.dpuf

It shows who really benefits from special low privileged investment tax rates.

And I've explained how the concentration of income and wealth in the hands of the few at the top hurts our economy.

For some, more is never enough. Even though the richest 1% now get 20% of the nation's income, and have about 40% of the nation's wealth, double from before the Reagan "trickle down" revolutions, you will still hear their apologists constantly (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)ing about taxes (even though they are proportionately amongst the lowest in the base several decades) and "handouts" to the less fortunate. You seem them trying to push flat tax so the richest pay less of the tax burden and the middle class pay more. You see them constantly trying to suppress worker wages to enhance their profits and incomes.

And since the Reagan trickle down revolution, they have fabulously succeeded. The richest are relatively richer than any time in modern history, including the '20s. They have doubled their share of the nation's income and wealth in just a generation.

So why do they continue to fight this class warfare against the middle class and for Govt policies to increase their share of the nation's income and wealth more and more?

You got me. For some, more is never enough.

 

Absolute revisionist history.

Since the establishment of this country, there have been people that have earned wealth that far exceeded those in poverty by hundreds of times larger. In fact, it was mostly worse in early days as immigrants worked extremely low paying jobs, often times financed and owned by the elite, and weren't protected by labor laws.

We now have thousands of millionaires in this country. Proof that wealth continues to be earned and grown for more and more people.

The fact that you want to blame "inequality" (as if anybody's wealth should be dependent on others in the first place) as Reagan's fault is absolute hyperbole non-sense.

 

All you’re doing is showing that the rich are rich. I say BIG DEAL! Why do you care so much about this?

And I say it doesn’t. Most of our wealthy are business owners. Guess what they do? THEY HIRE PEOPLE. THEY have been the ones to take the risk to invest and work hard to find the right product that people want; and as a result they hire people. They fail over and over again to find that successful solution in business. If you don’t want to be in the lower income brackets, then do the same. Stop asking the government to punish them for succeeding.

I don’t care if more isn’t enough. I’m not envious of the wealthy. I believe this country was built on the foundation of – if you work hard you can earn as much as you want; and not one bit of that is any of your business. Resenting success is what is destroying the country. You should encourage people to be successful. But they need to do it on their own. And there is no reason anyone can’t achieve this success. And don’t give me that “the poor are at a disadvantage” crap. There are far too many examples of people come up out of very meager and poor conditions to achieve exorbitant success and wealth. I don’t envy them; I admire them and am proud of them. I think they should be rewarded with more incentives to grow as big as they can possibly get. They are what make this country grow. These inventors, entrepreneurs, and risk-takers are what have made this country the greatest economic power this world has ever seen. There is reason for this – because government didn’t do it. Government didn’t invent the light bulb. Government didn’t invent the computer. Government didn’t invent the car. Government didn’t invent the assembly line. When people have been left alone from the government they excelled and achieved great things. Now we have a new society that wants to tax the life out of these great people that make our economy run. And you people on the left don’t seem to have figured out why they are leaving the country. TAXES! You keep raising their taxes and they will continue to leave and the jobs will go with them.

 

I showed how how the richest 10% own 80-90% of the stock market because you asked, as you apparently had no idea that so much of the wealth of stock is concentrated in the hands of so few.

You asked this and I answered in my prior post.

It shows who really benefits from special low privileged investment tax rates.

And I've explained how the concentration of income and wealth in the hands of the few at the top hurts our economy.

If that were the case, we'd be having a problem with too many jobs, since the rich have gotten much more of the nation's income and wealth than before the Reagan "trickle down" revolution.



Yet despite that massive amount of the nation's income and wealth that has been transferred to the from the middle classes, we have had an anemic recovery and job market.

So obviously they are not taking the many trillions of more dollars and creating jobs. So much for your hypothesis.

Same old 1% apologist argument. The richest are getting so much more of the nation's income and wealth because the bottom 90% aren't working hard.

The implication is that by massive coincidence starting at the exact same time as the Reagan trickle down revolution, the bottom 90% of Americans just decided to stop working hard. Never mind the fact that US worker productivity has grown just as much over the past 3 decades as it did in the prior 3.

Anything to keep more and more of American's income and wealth going away from the middle classes and up to the richest. More is never enough.

But govt instituted "trickle down" policies that were designed to make the richest richer and have helped to suppress workers' incomes.

1% apologist seem to think that the fact that inequality skyrocketed at the exact same time of the Reagan "trickle down" revolution is just some massive coincidence.

I've said it before. Conservatives make sense. If you ignore reality.

 

Not really, when you include all taxes. RW propaganda mislead you because they only include income taxes in their charts and graphs. When you include FICA taxes, gas taxes, state taxes, etc., you find that the overall tax structure is only minimally progressive and essentially flat.

For example, the 1% get about 22% of the gross income and pay about 23% of overall taxes. The bottom quintile gets 3% of the income and pays about 2% of the taxes.

There is nothing "morally unfair" about it at all. What is morally unfair is expecting a sub-poverty level family struggling for basic necessities to pay a 20% tax so that a multi-billionaire can get a nice tax break and buy a bigger mega-yacht.

I do have a problem with a very few getting so much more of the nation's income and wealth. Not only is it unfair to exclude the vast majority of Americans from the fruits of their own labor, but it is hurting our economy.

It is not the role of the Govt to pursue "trickle down" policies to make the richest ever richer at the expense of the middle class and the economy.

 

To the 1% apologists, the Reagan "trickle down" revolution -- designed to make the richest richer -- had nothing to do with the fact that they did just that.



It's just that by massive coincidence, at the very same time the Reagan "trickle down" revolution was implemented, 90% of Americans all of a sudden started making bad decisions, choosing the wrong path, and becoming losers.

I agree partly, we made the wrong choice, and it has resulted in loss of the vast majority of us.

 

Everything the government does that effects business "trickles down" to consumers. The good stuff (lower prices, better wages, etc) trickles very very slowly, or not at all. The bad stuff (layoffs, increased prices, etc) trickles almost instantaneously, and with alarming consistency. In fact, just the SUSPICION that government is about to ding business with increased taxes or more regulation has an almost IMMEDIATE adverse effect for consumers. Pre-emptive trickle-down badness.

 

No! I don’t care. The economy dictates this. Government cannot change it. The wealthy have the means to invest far more than those that aren’t. You’re asking a dog to be a cat. You can’t change the nature of things. What I don’t want is to put the power in the hands of government and shifting all that wealthy to them. I don’t trust them with it. We should never entrust this much power in government, to hand them the power to confiscate what you and I have worked so hard to EARN. It’s not theirs to take.

 

I fail to see how the rich getting richer has any effect whatsoever on me. I do see how vilifying the rich for getting richer is a political gain for the left though.

 

You're saying we should be doing it more like when Reagan and Bush were president?

Reagan
Federal Spending increase, 1981-1985: +39.5%.
Total government employment, 1981-1985: +607,0000

Bush
Federal Spending increase, 2001-2005: +32.7%
Total government employment, 2001-2005: +603,000

Obama
Federal Spending increase, 2009-2013: -1.89%
Total government employment, 2009-2013: -667,000

source data
Expenditures: http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/45249-2014-04-HistoricalBudgetData.xlsx
Employment: http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

You're quite wrong.


CBO estimates that ARRA’s policies had the following effects in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2010:

o Raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.1 percent and 3.5 percent,

o Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.9 percentage points,

o Increased the number of people employed by between 1.3 million and 3.5 million, and

o Increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 1.8 million to 5.0 million compared with what would have occurred otherwise, as shown in Table 1. (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers.

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/22032

Non-partisan analysis by IHS, Macroeconomic advisers, and Moody's also show job creations by the stimulus in the 2.1-2.5 million range.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/cea_5th_arra_report.pdf page 16.

*CBO: Between 1.3 million and 3.6 million jobs saved or created.
*IHS/Global Insight: 2.45 million jobs saved or created.
*Macroeconomic Advisers: 2.3 million jobs saved or created.
*Moody’s Economy.com: 2.5 million jobs saved or created.

http://www.politifact.com/virginia/...or-says-stimulus-failed-get-people-back-work/

They can do whatever they want as long as they pay in.

False equivalency as I've rebutted. But if they suck they same to you, vote for the Democrats.

Yes, people of means in some cases saw their premiums go up, just as they have every year prior to Obamacare.

So make Medicare cover all instead. I'm cool with that.

Quite the contrary.

LOL, you couldn't even come up with even *one* thing the Republicans have done to help the poor or middle class or workers over the 1% or business in the last 30 years, could you? Don't feel bad. No other conservative has been able to either.

o Fought to raise the minimum wage.
o Fought to extend unemployment coverage.
o Fought to lower FICA taxes
o Expanded health care to poorer workers.
o Fought to require businesses to be required to provide health care
o Fought to empower unions
o Fought to raise taxes on the millionaires.
o Fought to preserve SS
o Fought for the EITC
o Fought for Medicaid expansion

I'm sure I'll be able to think of more.

This expansion, like the one before it, likethe one before it, were all shallower and slower than the recoveries before the Reagan "trickle down" revolution.

Compare the recoveries in 1990, 2001, and the current one, with earlier recoveries:

Comparing the Republicans to the Dems is a false equivalency as I just proved above. You couldn't even name one thing the Republicans have done to help the poor or middle class or workers over the 1% or business in the last 30 years.

Well that would be an improvement from the past where they only cut the taxes the richest usually pay.

- - - Updated - - -

Explain your personal financial situation in detail and maybe I can explain it to you.

- - - Updated - - -

I couldn't care less that you don't care. It's obvious that you don't care that the middle class is getting left behind and its hurting our economy. It's obvious that you don't care that the 1% are getting more and more of the nation's income and wealth while the bottom 90% languish.

You think that makes you special? Every 1% apologist on this board doesn't care. All they care about is the 1% getting more and more. I couldn't care less whether you care or not.

 

Your first link doesn't work and your second link has nothing to do with the topic.
"ESTABLISHMENT DATA

Table B-1. Employees on nonfarm payrolls by industry sector and selected industry detail
[In thousands]"





Year

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Annual



2004
21538 21550 21588 21614 21614 21601 21606 21626 21635 21656 21692 21693

2005
21735 21744 21740 21754 21781 21763 21857 21863 21845 21829 21859 21879

2006
21847 21878 21903 21919 21926 21922 21973 22011 22082 22068 22083 22088

2007
22095 22131 22149 22175 22193 22207 22171 22226 22279 22297 22334 22376

2008
22388 22417 22443 22450 22483 22517 22568 22567 22537 22549 22560 22556

2009
22579 22576 22560 22677 22617 22576 22521 22537 22451 22524 22533 22482

2010
22480 22468 22511 22570 22992 22760 22579 22420 22256 22298 22286 22263

2011
22261 22206 22187 22189 22125 22156 22043 22040 21993 21999 21972 21946

2012
21942 21940 21937 21931 21910 21923 21911 21925 21927 21897 21889 21888

2013
21866 21883 21860 21875 21852 21852 21831 21853 21864 21854 21856 21854

2014
21832 21853 21856 21882 21883 21890 21894 21899(P) 21911(P)

 

LOL - uh... no.

How about explain YOUR personal financial situation and how the rich have adversely affected you.

 

I'm sure its just a big coinky dinky that the richest started getting more and more of the nation's income and wealth at precisely the same time of the Reagan "trickle down" revolution. It make much more sense to believe that the 1% just happened to start working much hard right at that same time while the bottom 9% got lazy.

Conservatives make sense. If you ignore reality.

 

I haven't asked you to explain how anything affect me personally. Nor have I made any claims about my personal situation.

 

By stating there is any form of ‘progressive tax’ system you are admitting the wealthy pay more only because they are wealthy. I’m not going to waste a lot of time going state-by-state. I will tell you in MD (as I would be most blue states are) the tax system is extremely progressive. Just look at the leap between the 4th and 5th brackets in both Single and Married categories. Corporate taxes are about the highest in the nation and businesses are leaving the state in droves because of it. And then we have that all-so-wonderful rain tax. Those who own larger properties (typically the more well-off) get punished the most from this extreme tax. MD residents are also leaving the state in droves because of high taxes. High taxes are nothing but destructive to economic growth and attracting businesses; which every state needs for jobs.

 

The deficit is still $481 BILLION and decreasing. But this is a wash as it lies on the back of the stimulus and borrowing. I'm sure you know our debt continues to go up. It's like paying one credit card with another.

But I will NOT defend massive spending by any president.

Reagan's was on the backs of building up a massive military to combat communism. There was an opportunity in the USSR's plummeting economy to capitalize on it; and the arms race forced the USSR into collapse. A good strategy; but on the backs of tax payers... I'm not sure I agree it was a good idea.

Bush turned out to be one of the most deceptive presidents in history in my opinion. He ran as a conservative - lower spending, cut taxes (which he did), reduce the size of government - then governed like a liberal. And look what he did - he virtually destroyed this country.

We need to reduce the size of government. We need to lower the tax burden on everyone, in all taxes, not just income. We should demand less intrusion in our lives by government. This country thrived on small, non-intrusive government. Now, because of massive government and placing more expectations on them to fix our problems we are dying. Both parties are responsible.

 

I don't get it. I just showed you that contrary to what you're saying, the rich are not actually paying disproportionately high taxes. They're paying about the same as the middle class.

Most economists argue that a progressive tax system is the way to go. What we have is basically a system that is flat except for the very rich and the very poor, each of whom pay less. To get to a more optimal system, we would need to increase the taxes on the rich not just to match the taxes on the middle class, but to be higher than the taxes on the middle class.

All the talk about "punishing" and "fairness" and whatnot is not relevant. This is economic policy, not a reality tv show about sassy teens getting jobs for the summer or something.