Analysis Shows Top 1% Gained $21 Trillion in Wealth Since 1989 While Bottom Half Lost $900 Billion

[Trausti]

Is that what you took from this?

Yes. So do you think children should have to go to school?

Well, you can attack that strawman somewhere else. My point is that student debt retards wealth accumulation. If you disagree, then provide your rejoiner.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Is that what you took from this?

Yes. So do you think children should have to go to school?

Well, you can attack that strawman somewhere else. My point is that student debt retards wealth accumulation. If you disagree, then provide your rejoiner.

It's been revealing to hear you not answer such a basic question.

/derail

 

[Trausti]

Well, you can attack that strawman somewhere else. My point is that student debt retards wealth accumulation. If you disagree, then provide your rejoiner.

It's been revealing to hear you not answer such a basic question.

/derail

Hey, don’t blame me for your lack of reading comprehension.

 

[Rhea]

Originally Posted by DBT View Post
Where do the rich get their money from?

From people who want to consume what they produce

Who is the "THEY" in your quote here? You think the ultra rich actually "produce" anything? They make a thing?
Or...
They use their wealth to create a system where other people (the ones you call lazy) are doing all the producing but the sales are controlled by the ultra rich, who take the bulk of the profit and leave the ACTUAL producers with very little - and less every year.

American workers have increased productivity and created more and more per capita over the last 4 decades. They work smarter and faster. They create machines to assist their work.

Then it seems to you that a rich man whose hands have no calluses is the "producer"?

The consumers pay the producers money

Nay. The consumers ARE the producers.

Do they work really, really hard, billions of dollars worth of hard work?

No. But they are willing to take risks most other people will not tolerate.

... with the money they bullied from the producers.

They are willing to invest and produce products that have no benefit to them personally, but are products that help others.

Oh, Rvonse. Your rich people are soooo altruistic.

All the aforementioned depends heavily on the capitalism not being corrupted however.

Indeed. It all depends very heavily on the subsidies and protections that our government gives the owner class to enable them to overpower the workers. People like you felt it was fair for corporations to bond together to force the worker but somehow "corrupt" for workers to bond together by unions to level the playing field.



You are utterly unaware of how the system props up the owner class that you mistakenly call "producers" over the actual producers whose power and even civil rights are stolen from them through union busting and mandatory forced arbitration.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Let’s not ignore the role universities and their adminsitrative bloat play here. Imposing enormous debts for useless degrees; nearly impossible to accumulate wealth after that. Or we can just blame people more successful than ourselves - people who often ditched college.

And speaking of strawman arguments.

Regardless, the point from OP is about value. Have the wealthiest of Americans actually provided that value of their expanded wealth relative to everyone else? Have the proletariat provided a rescinding value to the economy?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The funny things is, I totally agree with that tweet, but I am certain we have very different ideas about what constitutes production and on whose shoulders it primarily falls. Our hardest workers are, absolutely, those worst served by our economic model.

We are a civilization or collective,but some people like to believe that we are actually just hermits. They are good with allowing economic hermits to hold onto gargantuan amounts of capital. The idea of making the lives of poorer people a little bit better almost sickens them, which seems to be of a sociopathic compass. Why would someone be against making someone’s life a little bit better? Because it takes a pittance away from other people?

We, as a civilization, shouldn’t encourage slothful behavior. But it seems completely lost on some that some of the laziest people are actually rich, inheriting the reward of the labor of previous generations. Yet, you’ll hear of no scorn for tben, just the poor who are poor because... the poor are just immoral capitalists.

It really is revolting.

The biggest improvement to your complaint IMO would be a drastic change in inheritance laws. The next generation should produce their own wealth and not depend on legacy.

My point was simple, wealth does not automatically equate equivalent value to the economy or equivalent effort to obtain such wealth. The proles are often demonized by evangelical capitalists as victims of their own choices. Which is ridiculous broad brushing. Much like their broad brushing of the wealthy as industrial workmen.

 

[Politesse]

Is that what you took from this?

Yes. So do you think children should have to go to school?

Well, you can attack that strawman somewhere else. My point is that student debt retards wealth accumulation. If you disagree, then provide your rejoiner.

So you're mocking people for not making investments, then also mocking them for making investments?

 

[Trausti]

Well, you can attack that strawman somewhere else. My point is that student debt retards wealth accumulation. If you disagree, then provide your rejoiner.

So you're mocking people for not making investments, then also mocking them for making investments?

I’m criticizing the cost of universities. Hence, “administrative bloat.’”

 

[ronburgundy]

Let’s not ignore the role universities and their adminsitrative bloat play here. Imposing enormous debts for useless degrees; nearly impossible to accumulate wealth after that. Or we can just blame people more successful than ourselves - people who often ditched college.

The rise in college tuition is in large part due to the massive cuts in state and federal funding, cuts that have been made mostly to benefit the rich. Plus, the majority of people at or below median wealth either did not go to college or only went to low cost community college (most people below median income go to community college). And had they completed a 4 year degree, most of them would be making about $35k more than the median income of high school grads (which would cover the cost of tuition within a few years). Even the more "useless" degrees in liberal arts and social sciences earn you about $15k per year more per year and a half million over one's lifetime more than without these "useless" degrees.

https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/collegepayoff-completed.pdf

In sum, despite rising tuition caused in large part by Republican funding cuts, the reduced wealth of the bottom 50% over the past 30 years would be even lower in both relative and absolute terms if fewer of them went to college.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Well, you can attack that strawman somewhere else. My point is that student debt retards wealth accumulation. If you disagree, then provide your rejoiner.

So you're mocking people for not making investments, then also mocking them for making investments?

I’m criticizing the cost of universities. Hence, “administrative bloat.’”

My gosh, we're in agreement that universities are too expensive. Excuse me for a second, I have to go smack my head against something hard to see if I'm not dreaming.

 

[Politesse]

Well, you can attack that strawman somewhere else. My point is that student debt retards wealth accumulation. If you disagree, then provide your rejoiner.

So you're mocking people for not making investments, then also mocking them for making investments?

I’m criticizing the cost of universities. Hence, “administrative bloat.’”

Well, I'm not going to argue with you on that point; there is no good that can come from endlessly raising the price of what are increasingly becoming basic credentials. There's also a completely unchecked and unregulated predatory industry of private loans and loan consolidation that sit on the back of the student debt crisis like vampires (about one in four of my phone calls these days are junk calls from presumably fraudulent or near-fraudulent "loan managers" trying to acquire my school debts).

 

[lpetrich]

So Thomas Sowell is a Marxist.

 

[Half-Life]

People really miss the big picture. Did Bill Gates actually do $80 billion dollars worth of work? No, he did not. But, in terms of how his computers are so widespread and people depend on them, he contributed so much value to the economy that it is well over $80 billion with what he gave to the world.

Like Ben Shapiro says, if I go outside and make mudpies all day, that is hard work, but it is worthless.

 

[Half-Life]

So Thomas Sowell is a Marxist.

LOL! Thomas Sowell is something the leftists absolutely despise: a black conservative.

 

[lpetrich]

Yes, poor people tend to spend all their money while rich people tend to save it.

As if rich people and poor people have EXACTLY the same income. Yes, EXACTLY.

Having very little money is poor practice for saving and investing, because survival expenses consume nearly all of one's money. It's something that many right-wingers don't want to believe, because it gets in the way of "rich people good, poor people bad".

 

[Politesse]

People really miss the big picture. Did Bill Gates actually do $80 billion dollars worth of work? No, he did not. But, in terms of how his computers are so widespread and people depend on them, he contributed so much value to the economy that it is well over $80 billion with what he gave to the world.

Like Ben Shapiro says, if I go outside and make mudpies all day, that is hard work, but it is worthless.

I don't think even Bill Gates himself would agree with that. He has made a second career out of redistributing his own wealth (which is over 102 billion by the way, you've undershot it by a margin). Why would he do this, if he "deserves" the untold riches and anyone who wants a piece of his pie is greedy and undeserving?

In addition to his charitable endeavors, he also strongly supports having more money "stolen" from him in the form of higher federal taxation, and likewise to other major earners. From the linked article:

“There’s no doubt that what we want government to do in terms of better education and better health care means that we need to collect more in taxes, ” he said, “and there’s no doubt that as we raise taxes, we can have most of that additional money come from those who are better off.”

Of course you don't have to agree with him, but it's funny to cite as a reference someone who does not agree with you at all.

 

[lpetrich]

So Thomas Sowell is a Marxist.

LOL! Thomas Sowell is something the leftists absolutely despise: a black conservative.

He completely agrees with Marxists that there are maker classes and taker classes, even if he has different identifications of them.

 

[Half-Life]

Yes, poor people tend to spend all their money while rich people tend to save it.

As if rich people and poor people have EXACTLY the same income. Yes, EXACTLY.

Having very little money is poor practice for saving and investing, because survival expenses consume nearly all of one's money. It's something that many right-wingers don't want to believe, because it gets in the way of "rich people good, poor people bad".

Lots of poor people always seem to have money for booze, weed, and cigarettes though. Trust me, I've seen it first hand. It's the short-term mentality. Like the person at my job who I asked, "What would you do if someone gave you a million dollars?" and he responded, "Party every night, son!"

 

[Half-Life]

So Thomas Sowell is a Marxist.

LOL! Thomas Sowell is something the leftists absolutely despise: a black conservative.

He completely agrees with Marxists that there are maker classes and taker classes, even if he has different identifications of them.

So somebody invests millions of dollars into a company and when it comes time for him to get his profits, the boss should say "We redistributed the profits to the workers instead?"

Who the hell is gonna keep investing in businesses if it's just money being thrown away?

 

[Half-Life]

People really miss the big picture. Did Bill Gates actually do $80 billion dollars worth of work? No, he did not. But, in terms of how his computers are so widespread and people depend on them, he contributed so much value to the economy that it is well over $80 billion with what he gave to the world.

Like Ben Shapiro says, if I go outside and make mudpies all day, that is hard work, but it is worthless.

I don't think even Bill Gates himself would agree with that. He has made a second career out of redistributing his own wealth (which is over 102 billion by the way, you've undershot it by a margin). Why would he do this, if he "deserves" the untold riches and anyone who wants a piece of his pie is greedy and undeserving?

In addition to his charitable endeavors, he also strongly supports having more money "stolen" from him in the form of higher federal taxation, and likewise to other major earners. From the linked article:

“There’s no doubt that what we want government to do in terms of better education and better health care means that we need to collect more in taxes, ” he said, “and there’s no doubt that as we raise taxes, we can have most of that additional money come from those who are better off.”

Of course you don't have to agree with him, but it's funny to cite as a reference someone who does not agree with you at all.

Bill Gates could give as much money to charity as he wants. But when the government says, "Hey Bill! You make too much money! We're gonna take it from ya!" That is stealing.