Wealth distribution in the US

B

Bevo Incognito

5,000+ Posts
Wow ... talk about ironic.

I was on google news and I saw this editorial about how the middle class in America has shrunk in size and how net incomes for the middle class declined again last year and how income inequality is now at its greatest levels since the 19th century:


The Link



I went back to Google news and one of the articles is about the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans and how their wealth grew 13% last year. Their net worth is now 1/8th that of America's GDP.

The Link


I wonder how long this trend is sustainable?
 
Its not sustainable. However, the answer is not to take it from one group by fiat and distribute it to another. If you're middle class and you're waiting for that to happen you will fall further behind.
 
The solution is not wealth redistribution as the left proposes. We need to encourage business owners to expand and to keep jobs in America. Start by reducing excessive regulations and taxation. Let businesses bring their cash hoards from overseas back in the country without tax penalty with the condition of expansion and job creation. Clinton pushes this idea all the time. Unfortunately the current occupant in the White House is a Marxist.
 
^And you can hardly blame them, with the economic uncertainty as well as the fear of the ultimate costs of Obamacare.

HHD
hookem.gif
texasflag.gif
coolnana.gif
ousucksnana.gif
 
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Its not sustainable. However, the answer is not to take it from one group by fiat and distribute it to another. If you're middle class and you're waiting for that to happen you will fall further behind.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I think a lot of this is about bargaining power and the steady erosion or unions and corporate leaders who actually cared about the welfare of people working. Obviously we have to pay someone to pick up the trash at the curb, we have to pay someone to cut our meat and put out fresh produce at the grocery store and pay someone to put shingles on our houses. Whatever it costs, even twice as much as we pay now, we can afford it.
Do the people doing those menial job people deserve a living wage with access to health care while the wealth acquision of the wealthiest goes up 13 percent? No, that would be Marxism. But it is a legitimate question to ask if we want to keep giving more of the economic power and leverage to the folks that have the most, because a lot of them don't care how hard it is at the lower rungs of the economic ladder. They'll go to parties in 50,000 sqare foot mansions and gripe that the people earning $9 bucks an hour are leeches who somehow think they are entitled to food, 600 square feet with a couch, a TV and a microwave and access to medical care when they are sick. Funny thing is the rich folks who want the workers to go hungry and acceess health care at the emergency room would be helped by a rising tide that gave those people enough compensation to afford a decent lifestyle.
 
Interesting topic. I actually recently read an opposite take on this subject. How long can we sustain upwards of 50% paying NO taxes? Also, someone mentioned Obamacare ... It has already started to rear it's ugly head. Major chemical companies like DuPont are no longer going to offer insurance to retirees because they don't want to deal with Obamacare.
 
Obamacare was an effort to rein in costs of health care and provide more universal access. It was a response to a system that was eating an ever larger slice of the nation's economic pie. Repealing "Obamacare" with nothing more intelligently designed in replacement is going back to an system growing at an economically unsustainable rate.
The issue includes vast increases in technology whose advancement is paid for fully in the US though utilization is worthwhile. And there are vast enclaves of medical practice whose costs are inflating seemingly immune from market pressures. Certainly at the retail level it's easy to understand. We're sick and hurting and don't care much what our insurance company, Medicare or Medicaid has to pay to ease the suffering. A lot of this was baked in the cake and would have been no different had we elected John McCain president. The roots of this go back to at least the Kennedy Administration if not further.

Again, it's conveninent politics to blame Obama for whatever ails health care, but it wouldn't be much better had he been born in Kenya and stayed there.
 
Lets play a game called satistics. Lets say that in 2004 we had the following based on a census of 10 family incomes:

1) $1,500,000
2) $750,000
3) $250,000
4) $150,000
5) $100,000
6) $80,000
7) $50,000
8) $35,000
9) $25,000
10) $20,000

The median income here is $90,000

Now we look again in 2012:

1) $4,000,000
2) $850,000
3) $350,000
4) $175,000
5) $110,000
6) $90,000
7) $55,000
8) $42,000
9) $33,000
10) $28,000
11) $22,000
12) $19,000

The median income is now $72,500.

The guy at the top had a big four years as an EVP at Google. Everyone on the 2004 list had an increase in their earnings and two new people entered the workforce just starting out. Yet, in 2004 the top 20% had 76% of the earnings and in 2012 they had about 85% of the total.

Stas like these seldom reveal any actual truths. We do not know what the total income of the group was. Did it go up or down. How many people were in the workforce. How many went part time to have a family. How many low income people filed a return for the first time in order to get a rebate. It is impossible to know.

As long as their is upward opportunity in our country then our system will prevail.
 
Criizistre: The working poor pay Social Security and Medicare tax, about 15 percent of the income. The working poor are certainly not all of the 47 percent, but two working adults making $10 bucks an hour are going to pay a higher percentage of their income to Uncle Sam that Mitt Romney will, though none will be what we think of as traditional federal income tax that pays for national defense, etc. That is left to the other 53 percent.
 
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"slack US and foreign market demand has tempered growth lately..." absolutley right.

So the 'Job Creator' label is a load of crud. Giving businesses more cash does not prompt hiring. Demand prompts hiring. 'job creators' are really 'demand satisfiers' and only when they anticipate adequate demand will they ramp up production and hire more workers.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________
BOS nailed it.
 
I think there is a sense of pessimism about the economy and the direction of the country in general. With that uncertaintly, I think you guys are right, people and companies are sitting on their money. I think that if they felt there was good money to be made, they'd go after it of course.
 
If I can't blame Obama for my healthcare costs going up then you can blame Wall street and big banks for the housing collapse (at least not a portion).

I have the same health coverage as a few years ago yet my premiums are higher.

I still don't get why the housing ubble burst is anyone's fault except those that had to foreclose on their house. If you can't make the payment don't sign the mortgage papers. If you don't understand what an ARM is don't agree to it. Just because the bank approves you for a $300,00 home doesn't mean you have to buy one. Individuals typically get themselves in a mess and look for someone else to blame afterward.
 
Ollie- I understand your points, I really do. I wouldnt mind having all those things as well. But that is not what this country is founded on and not what it was colonized and fought for from the british. It is not what made us strong.

The US is founded on the principal that everyone gets a shot. Our system of govt was set up to protect people from discrimination bsed on birth. Thats really it. We dont care who your father was, what religion you are, what ethnicity you are (slavery was an issue that took time to rectify obviously) how rich or poor you are etc. You get access to school and freedom and wealth creation just like everyone else. But, and this is the crux of it, the trade off is that you have to try and work for it.

Everything comes with a price. Our system may not be for everyone and there are societies out there that offer more in govt support. There are trade offs there also.

Fundamentally in America a person gets to decide what level of comfort or lifestyle they want. Then it is incumbent on the individual to realize that goal. The govt is there to make sure no one can discriminate against you but it is not there to make it happen for you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top