An example of why the wealth gap will continue to widen

The US is one of the largest exporters of chop sticks....We have the raw materials in abundance while China (using about 45 billion disposable chopsticks a year) is low on lumber.

The teddy bear scenario is not that much different. In order to make the most profit, you go where the raw materials are in abundance...In the teddy bear case...that would be human labor.

In the teddy bear scenario, the businessman is taking advantage of cheap labor AS COMPARED to the US. It may indeed NOT be cheap labor to the indigenous workers.

 

Yes they do. 17.7 percent of the lowest income earners make it to the top 1 percent and 19.4 percent of the middle class make it there as well.

It doesn't show a clear picture. It doesn't tell you anything about the absolute conditions of any income quintile. Just because someone has a smaller share of income doesn't mean they are poor. Their actual income is actually higher. It's like if I asked someone would they have 1/6 of a pie or 1/9 of a pie. The answer might vary on the size of the pie. Having one ninth of the pie might be better if the pie is larger if you have 1/6.

All the data measures are wealth people in one year with wealth people years before. It doesn't take into account of actual individuals.

The top 1 percent accounts for people who make $350,000 a year and up. If you sell a house in one particular year you automatically made it within the Top 1 percent of income earners. Even though you didn't make any income. The very next year you are considered poor.

The same applies if you are a hedge fund manager and you make a lot of money in the stock market, you automatically make it within the top 1 percent. If you don't sell any stocks within that time period you will be back at the bottom quintile of income earners.

If you make a lot of money in one particular year, depending on how much you made you were considered whatever tax bracket you fell under.

Who comprises the income distribution is never taken into account with snapshot data. The stagnation of the bottom quintile income earners is not stagnation. The poor also become richer by reaching to the middle class or the top income brackets. The old poor becomes the new middle class and rich while the new poor consistent of immigrants, young people and people entering the labor force and they start in the labor force with low levels of income.

There is no rich or the poor. The wealth isn't in a particular bracket. Wealth is accumulated, it's not income. All you are seeing with the income disparity are people who are being more productive at certain time periods. There is no "wealth" at the top. That is just the income which has been gained by being productive in one particular year. Income mobility all depends on how productive on person is. One moment anyone can be in the top 1 percent, the next year they can be poverty stricken.

The wealth is not going to the Top 1 percent because anyone can make it to the top 1 percent depending upon their productivity. All snapshot data does is measures who made a certain amount of money in a particular time and measures who made a certain amount of money in another time period. The simply fact is that everyone is getting richer, rich and poor alike.

Yes they do. You're just seeing what you what to see. In 1975 85 percent of them were no longer poor by 1991 and 20 percent of those income earners made it in the top 20.

 

It may seem like that, but exponential growth patterns are always cause for concern. 1 turns into 3, 3 turns into 9, 9 turns into 27, and so on and so on. Identifying the problem early on is how we stop that number from turning into thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. By the time you start to worry, it's already too late...

 

Wrong. There is no percentage increase because (1-0)/0 = undefined.

Math skills...go get some.

 

Don't try and pretend you're good at math.

 

There's no need to pretend, dumpling. I am good at math.

 

So you're not from the US then?

 

Born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago!

 

Unusual in this day and age certainly. Must have some Korean heritage there somewhere. Certainly not your regular brand of Walmart shopper for sure. So, what do you sell? What do you make? You wouldn't be in the "protection" industry, would you? (Chicago and all).

 

I'm a veteran and an undergraduate, premed.

 

One of the lucky few. So you're going to peddle drugs to your "patients".
A big Pharma pusher huh? Lotta perks for that I hear.

 

Luck has nothing to do with it. I gave four years to the military and have been studying like a mad-man for the past three years. It's exacted a heavy toll on me and there is no assurance that I will succeed.

I'm not going to "peddle" or "push" anything. I have a very sincere desire to help people stay and get well. As an aside, I plan to advocate against prescribing children powerful psychotropic drugs for so-called behavioral "disorders" like ADHD, which I feel is nothing more than the unnecessary pathologizing of natural human behavior.

 

And you never received any Government benefits during this entire process?

 

Of course I did. The GI Bill is paying for my school.

 

So why do you hate the Government so much?

 

Why do you feel the need to put words in my mouth?

 

I've seen enough words come out of your mouth to understand you have an extreme hatred for the Government.

 

You have a reading comprehension problem because I've never said I hate the government.

 

You don't say it but every thing you argue about is your disliking for the Government. You are pure anti-Government and anti science.

 

It's about my disliking certain aspects of government, not its very existence. I am a Constitutional Federalist, which means I endorse specific but limited powers of central government. Those powers which I feel run afoul of the spirit and letter of the law, I criticize. It just so happens that the government has done a great many things which fall outside the scope of the Constitution, so I find myself criticizing them often.

Anyway, I've actually worked for the government; in fact, I sacrificed my body and risked my life on their behalf. Tell me, Mr. Government-lover, what have you done for them?

Yes, a military veteran biology major is the very personification of anti-government and anti-science. How very logical of you.

 

Oh look, another 'expert' on the US 'educated' by the media.

 

Nope. Per your own report, only 3% of the lowest class even made it to the top 20% quintile, not even the top 1%.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

You keep repeating that "anybody can make it to the top class" ad nauseum but you have only shown that it's a very rare phenomenon. You think a middle class worker has a chance in hell of making the same in a year as a Wall Street CEO if he simply increase his productivity? I won't even address the "There is no rich or poor" nonsense.

 

You need to take the time and actually read data. Among the 64 percent of income earners which became richer 17.7 percent made it to the top 1 percent.

If you don't have a basic fundamental economic understanding of "who" comprises the brackets of it you won't understand. Housing sales peaked in it's highest in 30 years. It was a housing bubble. If you sold your house in the middle of a housing bubble you were automatically in the Top 1 percent. It didn't matter what you made before, because the moment the fiscal year was over you were in that tax bracket. If you didn't make the same income the year after, you were poverty stricken.

These people weren't billionaires nor did they earn an actual income of the Top 1 threshold. They Sold a home and they automatically made it in the Top 1 percent.

Of course. Three quarters of income earners who were in the bottom 20 percent in 1975 were in the top 20 at some point in during the next 16 years.

It's only nonsense to people who don't understand mobility. Who comprises income brackets matter more. The truth people move in and out of income brackets all the time. When you understand that, you'll understand economic mobility better. People only measure inequality by snap shot data. It doesn't tell you about individuals. All the rhetoric about income disparities between classes all the differences the fact that most people start out in lower-paid, entry-level jobs and then earn more as they acquire more skills and experience over the years. There is no "the rich" or "the poor." The poor are ill defined by statistics on current income, so are "the rich."

 

More of a realist. You can live in the fantasy that the US citizens are number one in education, but I'd rather realize that the bulk of them are more along the lines of the "Walmart employee" types. The only thing we're number one in anymore is selling and packaging BS, extraction from the ignorant for profit, and renaming the whole process as "capitalism". We know war. We know how to screw somebody else out of what they have, and we know how to BS ourselves into pretending it's all wonderful (and we know ignorance really, really well). Oh....and we're up on American Idol and experts on "Dancing with the Stars".

 

1000 bears for $.10 each is only an investment of $100. This means that poor and middle-class people can make this investment. This means your scenario has nothing to do with the 'wealth gap' widening?

Entrepreneurship is open to all people no matter their economic class! It does not require 'wealth' to buy your bears...it requires some thinking and some action and follow through!

Lastly, for those who are jealous of others over their supposed wealth, if you focus on yourself instead of others, and think a little, you will be surprised at how much you can achieve...on your own...