Inequality

[untermensche]

And if that cured everything, 2007 wouldn't have happened because we did get money to everybody with the run up of the housing industry. The argument has always how to get them the money.

No, we did not get money to everyone, we got debt to everyone. And then we bundled the debt into pretty packages and speculated on it in the markets. Speculation and debt has never been the working man's friends.

And then what happened is the biggest got paid back by the government for what they lost while homeowners lost their homes.

 

[ksen]

Sticks are for losers.

Carrots are for masters of the universe.

 

[doubtingt]

The potential silver (or maybe it should be gold) lining on the OP stat is that all of that wealth going to just the .01% might be better for the lower 90% than if more of it went to the top 1%.

The top .01% is only about 20, 000 adults. Their number limits the power they have and damage they can do with it compared to if the 2,000,000 in the top 1% who are already very rich had all that extra money that is in the hands of that $20,000 instead.

Is it better to have 1 person with trillions wielding it in their self interests or 100 people with billions wielding it in their self-interests?

 

[ksen]

I thought you were going to tell us 20,000 targets is less than 2,000,000 targets.

Am disappoint

 

[doubtingt]

I thought you were going to tell us 20,000 targets is less than 2,000,000 targets.

Am disappoint

Well, its kinda the flip side of that. Its 20,000 people targeting the rest of us rather than 2,000,000 people targeting the rest of us. It might be easier to dodge the bullets.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I thought you were going to tell us 20,000 targets is less than 2,000,000 targets.

Am disappoint

Well, its kinda the flip side of that. Its 20,000 people targeting the rest of us rather than 2,000,000 people targeting the rest of us. It might be easier to dodge the bullets.

I think it's the opposite. If you have 200,000, you have more competing agendas and more collusion between the members of the in-group. When a smaller group of elites each weilds more individual power, it makes it easier for them to stay out of each others' way while working to maximize their power. Also, if they do compete, they can afford to have a far more damaging competition since they can better survive any negative fallout which occurs and their lifestyle is further removed from the poorer individuals who'd get caught up in their fights.

 

[doubtingt]

Well, its kinda the flip side of that. Its 20,000 people targeting the rest of us rather than 2,000,000 people targeting the rest of us. It might be easier to dodge the bullets.

I think it's the opposite. If you have 200,000, you have more competing agendas and more collusion between the members of the in-group. When a smaller group of elites each weilds more individual power, it makes it easier for them to stay out of each others' way while working to maximize their power.

But it is the collusion that is the source of much of the damage to the 90%. The 1% have greater need and ability than the .01% to collude to corrupt the entire system in their collective favor, which means in favor of corporations and the wealthy generally, and against the interests of everyone else. A couple of rich guys in the .01% will just get special favors for themselves and their own company, which is far less destructive to most of the people in the 90% than a system fundamentally corrupted to favor corporate interests in general.

A judge that gets bought to rule in favor of a particular .01% defendant is less destructive to the 90% than a judge that he won't keep his job or get promoted if he rules against the interests of corporations and the wealthy, regardless of weather any specific defendant bribes them.

Also, if they do compete, they can afford to have a far more damaging competition since they can better survive any negative fallout which occurs and their lifestyle is further removed from the poorer individuals who'd get caught up in their fights.

But for that very reason that financial losses go unnoticed, they are less motivated to use all of their current power to corrupt the system to ensure they will not lose.
On a related note, I bet that billionaires spend less effort than multi-millionaires to ensure that 100% of their current wealth is "working for them" to "create" even more power and wealth (i.e., take it from others). They are more likely do things with that excess that they wouldn't even notice if it were gone on things that are less destructive to the 90%.

BTW, this is not a vetted theory of mine, just an intuitive speculation that occurred to me when I saw the OP graph. But I'd argue that your points about the 1% being in greater collusion to protect common interests (which absolutely exists) and their greater threat to their power posed by an uncorrupted system where other people's interests are protected actually support my claim that more wealth in their hands is more harmful to the 90% than the same wealth going to the .01%.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Trickle down.
Wait for it....





Wait for it....

 

[Axulus]

Well, its kinda the flip side of that. Its 20,000 people targeting the rest of us rather than 2,000,000 people targeting the rest of us. It might be easier to dodge the bullets.

I think it's the opposite. If you have 200,000, you have more competing agendas and more collusion between the members of the in-group. When a smaller group of elites each weilds more individual power, it makes it easier for them to stay out of each others' way while working to maximize their power. Also, if they do compete, they can afford to have a far more damaging competition since they can better survive any negative fallout which occurs and their lifestyle is further removed from the poorer individuals who'd get caught up in their fights.

It's kind of a moot point. The number of ultra wealthy are growing. Number of millionaires in US hit a record high in 2013 (at 9.6 million households) and billionaires hit 571. Unlike the leftist myth on this board, the wealth is going into more and more hands.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/14/news/economy/us-millionaires-households/

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1595341/america-beats-china-country-most-bilionaires

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I think it's the opposite. If you have 200,000, you have more competing agendas and more collusion between the members of the in-group. When a smaller group of elites each weilds more individual power, it makes it easier for them to stay out of each others' way while working to maximize their power. Also, if they do compete, they can afford to have a far more damaging competition since they can better survive any negative fallout which occurs and their lifestyle is further removed from the poorer individuals who'd get caught up in their fights.

It's kind of a moot point. The number of ultra wealthy are growing. Number of millionaires in US hit a record high in 2013 (at 9.6 million households) and billionaires hit 571. Unlike the leftist myth on this board, the wealth is going into more and more hands.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/14/news/economy/us-millionaires-households/

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1595341/america-beats-china-country-most-bilionaires

Who here ever said the raw numbers for wealthy people are not growing?

 

[Axulus]

It's kind of a moot point. The number of ultra wealthy are growing. Number of millionaires in US hit a record high in 2013 (at 9.6 million households) and billionaires hit 571. Unlike the leftist myth on this board, the wealth is going into more and more hands.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/14/news/economy/us-millionaires-households/

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1595341/america-beats-china-country-most-bilionaires

Who here ever said the raw numbers for wealthy people are not growing?

The percentages compared to the population as a whole are increasing a well.

 

[ksen]

the wealth is going into more and more hands.

nah

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/04/23/a-rise-in-wealth-for-the-wealthydeclines-for-the-lower-93/

From the end of the recession in 2009 through 2011 (the last year for which Census Bureau wealth data are available), the 8 million households in the U.S. with a net worth above $836,033 saw their aggregate wealth rise by an estimated $5.6 trillion, while the 111 million households with a net worth at or below that level saw their aggregate wealth decline by an estimated $0.6 trillion.

 

[SimpleDon]

Another chart of the recoveries from the recessions and who profits from them, but it is the 1% verses the 99%.

​

One thing that you have to understand is that the 10% believe that they deserve to make more money even if it comes from the poor and the middle class. What they don't realize is that when the poor and the middle class, the 90%, have been bled bone dry the 1% will turn to the 10% and bleed them. And when the 10% are bled out the 0.1% will turn on the 1% and bleed them and so on.

 

[Tigers!]

View attachment 1144

It seems the rich are bludgers though. The same % in 2012 as in 1929! Not very efficient or effective are they?

It seems that what is needed and that might make some of you happy is a nice big recession as in 1929. That certainly showed the rich people a thing or two.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

 

[AthenaAwakened]

 

[Loren Pechtel]

View attachment 1169

You realize how many of those Hispanic families are illegals and pretty much can't accumulate assets?

 

[coloradoatheist]

View attachment 1144

It seems the rich are bludgers though. The same % in 2012 as in 1929! Not very efficient or effective are they?

It seems that what is needed and that might make some of you happy is a nice big recession as in 1929. That certainly showed the rich people a thing or two.

And another people see why inequality doesn't matter. Which era of the time frame listed would people want to live?

 

[SimpleDon]

View attachment 1169

You realize how many of those Hispanic families are illegals and pretty much can't accumulate assets?

The Hispanic population of the US is 54 million, July, 2013. Estimates vary as to how many of the total are illegal, but the best that I could come up with is a total of ~12 million illegals total are in the US, down from a peak of 13 million due to the success of the previous administration in driving us into the worse recession since the great Depression by the benign neglect of properly enforcing the regulation of the financial sector, the single largest reason for the decline in illegal immigration that they managed.

Let's generous and say that 75% or 9 million of the illegals are Hispanic. The closest that I could get to an estimate here was that about 52% of the illegals or about 6 million are from Mexico. So my estimate is probably high.

The best estimate that I could come up with for the size of a Hispanic family in the US is about 3.87 people. (Although as you will soon see this doesn't matter.) If the wealth of an average Hispanic family is $1300 then the total wealth of Hispanic families in the US is,

total wealth ≈ (54 million/3.87) × 1300

if you are correct and illegals cannot accumulate any wealth, a somewhat dubious proposition since that is the very reason that they are here, then this wealth would be shared by only,

no. legal families ≈ (54 million - 9 million) ÷ 3.87 families. So we now have,

wealth per legal family = total wealth ÷ no. legal families or,

wealth per legal family ≈ ((54 million ÷ 3.87) × 1300 ) ÷ ( (54 million - 9 million) ÷ 3.87)

Which reduces to,

wealth per legal family ≈ 54 ÷ (54 - 9) × 1300 ≈ $1560

So basically it doesn't make a big difference to the idea in the chart, that minorities have accumulated much less wealth than white families.

And this is accepting your rather dubious assumption that the illegals here don't accumulate any wealth is correct, that they spend everything that they earn, sending nothing back to their home countries. Making me wonder how all of the shops that advertise in Spanish that they do that very thing, wire money to points South of the border, how they can stay in business.