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

[lpetrich]

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.

What unhistorical horseshit.

All he did was win at business dealing.

I know tons more about the history of computers and their software than certain people here, it seems. I wouldn't be surprised if such people think that Apple's MacOS is a ripoff of Windows.

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

So you are now saying that work effort is irrelevant? How convenient. Jumping between work effort and economic value as is convenient.

 

[Politesse]

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:



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.

Not according to Bill, interestingly enough. Why do you suppose that is? Perhaps (being as he is an educated man) he understands that currency, and ultimate responsibility for its continued value over the long term, ultimately belongs to the institutions that guarantee that currency more than those who hold a small portion of it at any given time.

 

[southernhybrid]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the insane growth and golden parachutes of CEOs. When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, people could live at least a simple middle class lifestyle on little more than the minimum wage. Workers received pay increases yearly and almost everyone had vacation time and health insurance paid by their employers. These days, minimum wage workers often need government help like SNAP or Section 8 to even survive, while some workers live in their cars, clean up in public rest rooms etc. because the can't afford the rent in many large cities. There is something wrong with that picture.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dianahembree/2018/05/22/ceo-pay-skyrockets-to-361-times-that-of-the-average-worker/#30b3a6a6776d

If you have any doubt about our country’s disappearing middle class, check out the current CEO-to-employee pay gap.

In the 1950s, a typical CEO made 20 times the salary of his or her average worker. Last year, CEO pay at an S&P 500 Index firm soared to an average of 361 times more than the average rank-and-file worker, or pay of $13,940,000 a year, according to an AFL-CIO’s Executive Paywatch news release today.

Despite increasing protests from unions and consumer groups, the average CEO pay climbed 6% last year. Meanwhile, the average production worker earned just $38, 613, according to Executive Paywatch.

Most galling, for many, is that CEOs often get full pay, bonuses and a golden parachute even when their companies fail and go bankrupt, receive taxpayer bailouts or pay millions in fines for fraud, according to Al Lewis of MarketWatch. CEO firings? No problem. In his 2013 article “Fraud, Failure and Bankruptcy Pay Well for CEOs,” Lewis reported the average golden parachute for CEOs forced out of their jobs was valued at $48 million.

Among other findings from the Executive Paywatch release:

The CEO of Mondelēz International, which makes Nabisco products, including Chips Ahoy, Oreos, and Ritz Crackers, makes 403 times its median employees’ pay: CEO Irene Rosenfeld received $17.3 in 2017, according to an SEC disclosure. But in what might be an example of the gender gap in CEO pay, Mondelēz’s new CEO, Dirk Van de Put made more than $42.4 million in total compensation in 2017 – more than 989 times the company’s median pay for employees. “Mondelēz continues to be one of the most egregious examples of CEO-to-worker pay

No CEO deserves such absurdly high salaries. CEOs need productive workers to be successful, but due to the extreme greed that seems to have taken over, CEOs seem to have no problem ripping off the other employees of a company while continuing to enrich themselves with amounts of money that nobody ever needs. I personally don't even understand why anyone would want that much money, but then I've always found helping others and being generous is much more satisfying than having too much shit.

In my last job, I worked with minimum wage workers who almost never received raises, no matter how hard they worked. This was just a small family own business, but the owners lived a rather expensive life style while denying benefits or decent salaries to their employees. I just did part time contract work, so it didn't impact me, as I could have left had I not enjoyed the nature of my work. Many of the workers received SNAP and subsidized housing benefits. In other words, the owners actually benefitted from government programs which enabled them to underpay their workers. As you might imagine, turnover was horrific and only a few good workers stayed.

I have no problem with people having a lot of wealth, but I have a large problem with CEOs or owners of a business making a huge percentage more than their best workers. That's immoral, imo. Plus, while it's not all about income taxes, I do believe that those who benefit the most from our system of government, should pay a much higher percentage of taxes than those who benefit the least.

It's rather sad to see the negative stereotypes made here by some posters. Not all people have the same opportunities or even the same mental capacity to succeed in high paying jobs. But, we'd all be up shit creek if it were not for nurse's aides, garbage collectors, teacher assistants, landscapers, meat packing workers, waitresses etc. If everyone was brilliant and highly educated, who would do those often unpleasant jobs? And, I'm highly skeptical that many of these over paid CEOs have really done much to cause a company to be successful. In fact, it's often the companies that treat their workers well, that are the most successful.

It's always been mind blowing to me, that so many people worship the ultra wealthy regardless of how greedy and immoral they are but despise the poor regardless of how kind and generous they are.

 

[lpetrich]

People really miss the big picture. Did Bill Gates actually do $80 billion dollars worth of work? No, he did not. ...

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?

Yes, giving handouts. He deserves to forfeit his wealth for that, right?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

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:



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.

I know lots of people who stole lots of money from their employers as union employees. Today's employees are paying the price for that theft. Up until WW2 the robber barons had their way. After WW2 the robber barons were tamed and unionized employees had their way. Today the robber barons are having their way again. It's a crazy circus.

But in reality, those union employees and those robber barons are the same people, after the same thing, so we shouldn't think of employees and employers as needing to be at odds with each other. Rather we need sound policy that redistributes wealth so kids that want to go to university don't have to mortgage their next 50 years to do so.

 

[ZiprHead]

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:



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.

I know lots of people who stole lots of money from their employers as union employees. Today's employees are paying the price for that theft. Up until WW2 the robber barons had their way. After WW2 the robber barons were tamed and unionized employees had their way. Today the robber barons are having their way again. It's a crazy circus.

But in reality, those union employees and those robber barons are the same people, after the same thing, so we shouldn't think of employees and employers as needing to be at odds with each other. Rather we need sound policy that redistributes wealth so kids that want to go to university don't have to mortgage their next 50 years to do so.

How did union employees steal from their employers?

 

[DBT]

From people who want to consume what they produce


The consumers pay the producers money

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

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

Wow, great stuff....even charging fair prices for their goods and services for the benefit of humankind... and they do all this without the help of workers?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

How did union employees steal from their employers?

My experiences in union environments were not positive, I think because these were labor unions.

What I mean by stealing is for a union employee to come to work on a typical eight hour shift, work for a couple hours, sleep for 4 hours, and spend the rest of the shift unproductively. It was a bad scene all around, I don't blame the unions, I blame the owners and managers for allowing it to continue for so long.

These are the jobs that left for greener pastures and part of the reason for the decline of the middle class.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, poor people tend to spend all their money while rich people tend to save it. Even when a poor person wins the lottery, they do not have the brainpower to save it, but instead they piss it away and then complain about the rich again.
All these cultural marxists these days want to steal from the rich and give to the poor, which is theft. Like Ben Shapiro says, "If everyone in the room votes to take money out of the rich guy's wallet, it's still theft."

Flat tax is the fairest way to do things. If you want higher taxes for the rich, that just means you want a penalty for success. Not in America! No way, no how!

I remember a while ago I asked someone at my job, "What would you do if someone gave you a million dollars?" You know what he said? "Party every night, son!" Nothing about investments or saving it for retirement. Just partying.

Your empathy is overwhelming.

Pointing out reality isn't a lack of empathy.


And something I wonder about this data--how much of that $900 billion was lost in the mortgage insanity?

And also note that there has been a lot of turnover in the intervening 30 years. The top 1% now isn't by any means the top 1% back then.

 

[laughing dog]

Yes, poor people tend to spend all their money while rich people tend to save it. Even when a poor person wins the lottery, they do not have the brainpower to save it, but instead they piss it away and then complain about the rich again.
All these cultural marxists these days want to steal from the rich and give to the poor, which is theft. Like Ben Shapiro says, "If everyone in the room votes to take money out of the rich guy's wallet, it's still theft."

Flat tax is the fairest way to do things. If you want higher taxes for the rich, that just means you want a penalty for success. Not in America! No way, no how!

I remember a while ago I asked someone at my job, "What would you do if someone gave you a million dollars?" You know what he said? "Party every night, son!" Nothing about investments or saving it for retirement. Just partying.

Your empathy is overwhelming.

Pointing out reality isn't a lack of empathy.

True, but Half-Life was not pointing out reality. Half-Life was repeating stereotypes and delusional memes.

 

[DBT]

Yes, poor people tend to spend all their money while rich people tend to save it. Even when a poor person wins the lottery, they do not have the brainpower to save it, but instead they piss it away and then complain about the rich again.
All these cultural marxists these days want to steal from the rich and give to the poor, which is theft. Like Ben Shapiro says, "If everyone in the room votes to take money out of the rich guy's wallet, it's still theft."

Flat tax is the fairest way to do things. If you want higher taxes for the rich, that just means you want a penalty for success. Not in America! No way, no how!

I remember a while ago I asked someone at my job, "What would you do if someone gave you a million dollars?" You know what he said? "Party every night, son!" Nothing about investments or saving it for retirement. Just partying.

Your empathy is overwhelming.

Pointing out reality isn't a lack of empathy.


And something I wonder about this data--how much of that $900 billion was lost in the mortgage insanity?

And also note that there has been a lot of turnover in the intervening 30 years. The top 1% now isn't by any means the top 1% back then.

'Reality' from the perspective of those in positions of power and privilege, the super rich. The average worker has different perspective on the matter of reality.

 

[RVonse]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the insane growth and golden parachutes of CEOs. When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, people could live at least a simple middle class lifestyle on little more than the minimum wage. Workers received pay increases yearly and almost everyone had vacation time and health insurance paid by their employers. These days, minimum wage workers often need government help like SNAP or Section 8 to even survive, while some workers live in their cars, clean up in public rest rooms etc. because the can't afford the rent in many large cities. There is something wrong with that picture.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dianahembree/2018/05/22/ceo-pay-skyrockets-to-361-times-that-of-the-average-worker/#30b3a6a6776d

If you have any doubt about our country’s disappearing middle class, check out the current CEO-to-employee pay gap.

In the 1950s, a typical CEO made 20 times the salary of his or her average worker. Last year, CEO pay at an S&P 500 Index firm soared to an average of 361 times more than the average rank-and-file worker, or pay of $13,940,000 a year, according to an AFL-CIO’s Executive Paywatch news release today.

Despite increasing protests from unions and consumer groups, the average CEO pay climbed 6% last year. Meanwhile, the average production worker earned just $38, 613, according to Executive Paywatch.

Most galling, for many, is that CEOs often get full pay, bonuses and a golden parachute even when their companies fail and go bankrupt, receive taxpayer bailouts or pay millions in fines for fraud, according to Al Lewis of MarketWatch. CEO firings? No problem. In his 2013 article “Fraud, Failure and Bankruptcy Pay Well for CEOs,” Lewis reported the average golden parachute for CEOs forced out of their jobs was valued at $48 million.

Among other findings from the Executive Paywatch release:

The CEO of Mondelēz International, which makes Nabisco products, including Chips Ahoy, Oreos, and Ritz Crackers, makes 403 times its median employees’ pay: CEO Irene Rosenfeld received $17.3 in 2017, according to an SEC disclosure. But in what might be an example of the gender gap in CEO pay, Mondelēz’s new CEO, Dirk Van de Put made more than $42.4 million in total compensation in 2017 – more than 989 times the company’s median pay for employees. “Mondelēz continues to be one of the most egregious examples of CEO-to-worker pay

No CEO deserves such absurdly high salaries. CEOs need productive workers to be successful, but due to the extreme greed that seems to have taken over, CEOs seem to have no problem ripping off the other employees of a company while continuing to enrich themselves with amounts of money that nobody ever needs. I personally don't even understand why anyone would want that much money, but then I've always found helping others and being generous is much more satisfying than having too much shit.

In my last job, I worked with minimum wage workers who almost never received raises, no matter how hard they worked. This was just a small family own business, but the owners lived a rather expensive life style while denying benefits or decent salaries to their employees. I just did part time contract work, so it didn't impact me, as I could have left had I not enjoyed the nature of my work. Many of the workers received SNAP and subsidized housing benefits. In other words, the owners actually benefitted from government programs which enabled them to underpay their workers. As you might imagine, turnover was horrific and only a few good workers stayed.

I have no problem with people having a lot of wealth, but I have a large problem with CEOs or owners of a business making a huge percentage more than their best workers. That's immoral, imo. Plus, while it's not all about income taxes, I do believe that those who benefit the most from our system of government, should pay a much higher percentage of taxes than those who benefit the least.

It's rather sad to see the negative stereotypes made here by some posters. Not all people have the same opportunities or even the same mental capacity to succeed in high paying jobs. But, we'd all be up shit creek if it were not for nurse's aides, garbage collectors, teacher assistants, landscapers, meat packing workers, waitresses etc. If everyone was brilliant and highly educated, who would do those often unpleasant jobs? And, I'm highly skeptical that many of these over paid CEOs have really done much to cause a company to be successful. In fact, it's often the companies that treat their workers well, that are the most successful.

It's always been mind blowing to me, that so many people worship the ultra wealthy regardless of how greedy and immoral they are but despise the poor regardless of how kind and generous they are.

This is one of the area's in US capitalism that is very corrupt IMO. A founder or inventer brings a lot of wealth to the economy but I have a very hard time seeing how a CEO of a well established firm does. I'm not sure how you would fix the problem other than government regulation though.

Another area of structural corruption is the people like Mit Romney who buy companies with no goal other to strip them down to asset sell offs. Besides the problem of creating unneeded unemployment there are some companies that are simply bought for their own assets. Its greed on steroids. But once again...how do you fix a problem related to morality. If you prevent immoral people like Carl Icann from buying up companies you also have to prevent the moral people like Warren Buffet from buying troubled companies.

They should at least enforce corporations to protect pension programs from bankruptcy though like they used to though.

 

[RVonse]

If everyone was brilliant and highly educated, who would do those often unpleasant jobs?

I think we have already reached this as there are many high educated people who can not find the job to justify the student loans they paid for in good faith.

One thing we can all agree with though and that is this. Everyone wants the other guy to do the real manual dirty work and then be able to make a huge salary talking on the phone sitting in an air conditioned room all day. All of us want to do interesting work that is easy and collect a lot of money for it.

 

[RVonse]

How did union employees steal from their employers?

My experiences in union environments were not positive, I think because these were labor unions.

What I mean by stealing is for a union employee to come to work on a typical eight hour shift, work for a couple hours, sleep for 4 hours, and spend the rest of the shift unproductively. It was a bad scene all around, I don't blame the unions, I blame the owners and managers for allowing it to continue for so long.

These are the jobs that left for greener pastures and part of the reason for the decline of the middle class.

There will be serious greed anywhere humans are present. Whether in the board room or the union hall, it is the human condition. But the key to checking both kinds of greed IMO is that unions should continue to possess the power to use their monopoly power with labor the same way that management uses their monopoly of employment.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Pointing out reality isn't a lack of empathy.


And something I wonder about this data--how much of that $900 billion was lost in the mortgage insanity?

And also note that there has been a lot of turnover in the intervening 30 years. The top 1% now isn't by any means the top 1% back then.

'Reality' from the perspective of those in positions of power and privilege, the super rich. The average worker has different perspective on the matter of reality.

I can't see how your response is relevant to what I said.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This is one of the area's in US capitalism that is very corrupt IMO. A founder or inventer brings a lot of wealth to the economy but I have a very hard time seeing how a CEO of a well established firm does. I'm not sure how you would fix the problem other than government regulation though.

Another area of structural corruption is the people like Mit Romney who buy companies with no goal other to strip them down to asset sell offs. Besides the problem of creating unneeded unemployment there are some companies that are simply bought for their own assets. Its greed on steroids. But once again...how do you fix a problem related to morality. If you prevent immoral people like Carl Icann from buying up companies you also have to prevent the moral people like Warren Buffet from buying troubled companies.

They should at least enforce corporations to protect pension programs from bankruptcy though like they used to though.

A CEO of a large company is directing the efforts of a large number of people. A small change in the efficiency with which those people work translates into a large amount of money.

Consider an example on a personal level: One routine I wrote produced something like a 1% improvement in yield. Not that impressive? That one change paid a good portion of my salary from that day forward. I'm singling it out because it's a case where the value I created was directly measurable. Was any worker exploited in any way? Nope, nobody benefited from the scraps so a reduction in the amount that fell off the end of the belt into the scrap bin had no cost. Note that we were not that big a company, only two people were using the routine in question.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If everyone was brilliant and highly educated, who would do those often unpleasant jobs?

I think we have already reached this as there are many high educated people who can not find the job to justify the student loans they paid for in good faith.

But how many of those chose degrees in demand? There are a lot more that get liberal arts degrees than there are demand for people with liberal arts degrees.

One thing we can all agree with though and that is this. Everyone wants the other guy to do the real manual dirty work and then be able to make a huge salary talking on the phone sitting in an air conditioned room all day. All of us want to do interesting work that is easy and collect a lot of money for it.

Agreed. It's just most of that interesting work requires aptitude and a lot of education.