The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%

[barbos]

Yes, rich consume somewhat dis-proportionally larger part of the GDP when they fly private planes and have larger houses but most of their expenses really going toward providing unnecessary jobs for servants/guards/etc, in other words it goes back to 90%.

well that's just about the most enormous load of horse shit i've ever seen another human being pretend have the gall to say out loud.

The most enormous load of horse shit is countless number of threads masturbating about how 1% have more and more "wealth" than the rest.

 

[barbos]

Utter nonsense. GDP is completely independent on amount of "wealth" accumulated/stolen by rich 1%.

You obviously failed to understand the article. Get someone to translate it for you. GDP total is not at issue. Even Metaphor gets that.

I don't need to read your retarded article because it's no different from previous "1% blah blah" crap.
And GDP Is an issue.

 

[laughing dog]

Someone fact check this on me, but I remember hearing this on a talking head show:
Bush/Cheney twice converted the Social Security surplus into a tax cut that heavily favored the wealthy (as all Bush tax cuts did.) Absolutely shot the surplus for those tax years out to their buddies.
If I'm stating that correctly, that's about the biggest example of income redistribution you can find. Again, if my assertion holds, they did it with a total and cynical awareness of the demographics of Social Security, the aging Boomer generation, the coming stresses on the SSA, all of it.

I just tried to fact check this for myself, and ran into a huge rabbit hole of ideological arguments. Politifact rates it as "largely false", because they are commenting on the claim that Bush took 1.37 trillion of the SS trust fund and used it for tax cuts and war. But in their discussion, they say he did borrow over $700 billion. But they go on to argue over the terms of borrowing, repayment, government funding & reallocating. I got a bit lost in it. And more than likely, we've seen multiple administrations using the payroll tax collections as a major source of borrowing. (Footnote: SS stopped running a surplus as of 2010.) I have not found a clear discussion of which President borrowed the most from SS, not that there is going to be a consensus that all sides will agree on.

By law, surpluses run by SS are "invested" in US Federal Treasury securities. This was instituted to avoid the federal gov't from either owning private equity (i.e. to avoid "socialism") or lending to private entities (avoid the appearance of corruption/favoritism and "socialism"). Since SS has run surpluses for most of its existence, the Federal gov't has been borrowing from itself for decades. Funds from the sale of Treasury securities have no restriction on use, so they are used for the any purpose deemed necessary.

Technically, Presidents do not borrow from anyone. Congress has the power of the purse, Congress enacts spending bills, and Congress has to approve Federal debt limit.

 

[ZiprHead]

Utter nonsense. GDP is completely independent on amount of "wealth" accumulated/stolen by rich 1%.

You obviously failed to understand the article. Get someone to translate it for you. GDP total is not at issue. Even Metaphor gets that.

I don't need to read your retarded article because it's no different from previous "1% blah blah" crap.
And GDP Is an issue.

So you're arguing against your own straw man instead of the article.

 

[barbos]

I don't need to read your retarded article because it's no different from previous "1% blah blah" crap.
And GDP Is an issue.

So you're arguing against your own straw man instead of the article.

If you actually read the article you will see that it the same "man" and it is yours, not mine.

 

[ZiprHead]

I don't need to read your retarded article because it's no different from previous "1% blah blah" crap.
And GDP Is an issue.

So you're arguing against your own straw man instead of the article.

If you actually read the article you will see that it the same "man" and it is yours, not mine.

Like you read it?

 

[prideandfall]

The most enormous load of horse shit is countless number of threads masturbating about how 1% have more and more "wealth" than the rest.

i'm trying to figure out how precisely it's "masturbating" over the topic, but OK.

And GDP Is an issue.

no it isn't.
it could arguably be an issue if the GDP were less than (US population divided by equitable lower middle class cost of living) and thus there wasn't enough physical resources in the country to provide for everyone, but that isn't the case so it doesn't matter.

 

[Elixir]

Well... if there was ever any doubt that barbos was a simple Pootey Promoter, it's dispelled now.

 

[RVonse]

Why do I think the income numbers weren't accurate during that period?

does it matter?
the specific numbers don't really matter when you have the existence of mansions and the existence of tenement housing in the same society.

Regardless what the exact numbers are, what's necessary is:

Increase property taxes, and make property taxes graduated.

Assess a tax on Wall Street (tax on all stock sales) (the one good Bernie Sanders idea)

Maybe increase the top income tax rate a little, but also eliminate or reduce the rates on the middle- and lower-level brackets. Eliminate the need for anyone in the bottom half to submit income tax forms.

I could not agree more with all of this.

But on the income tax part, the IRS will always prefer picking on the middle and lower level brackets because there are so many more of them and they are far worse represented to defend themselves.

 

[Elixir]

Regardless what the exact numbers are, what's necessary is:

Increase property taxes, and make property taxes graduated.

Assess a tax on Wall Street (tax on all stock sales) (the one good Bernie Sanders idea)

Maybe increase the top income tax rate a little, but also eliminate or reduce the rates on the middle- and lower-level brackets. Eliminate the need for anyone in the bottom half to submit income tax forms.

I could not agree more with all of this.

But on the income tax part, the IRS will always prefer picking on the middle and lower level brackets because there are so many more of them and they are far worse represented to defend themselves.

Also agree 100% (imagine that!)
In fact, a tiny, tiny tax on Wall Street (perhaps weighing a little heavier on day trades) alone, would dwarf the other measures in terms of dollar yield.

 

[lpetrich]

The most enormous load of horse shit is countless number of threads masturbating about how 1% have more and more "wealth" than the rest.

What do you think is happening? That they are selling their mansions and yachts? That they are losing their wealth and becoming only as rich as average people?

 

[DBT]

Even worse, homeless mentally sick/substance abusing people living on the streets of the richest nations on earth.

Fixed your tautology.

Wrong. You have simply offered your simplistic and prejudiced view.

 

[lpetrich]

Titled link: America's 1% Has Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90% | Time
It referred to
Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018 | RAND

The three decades following the Second World War saw a period of economic growth that was shared across the income distribution, but inequality in taxable income has increased substantially over the last four decades. This work seeks to quantify the scale of income gap created by rising inequality compared to a counterfactual in which growth was shared more broadly. We introduce a time-period agnostic and income-level agnostic measure of inequality that relates income growth to economic growth. This new metric can be applied over long stretches of time, applied to subgroups of interest, and easily calculated. We document the cumulative effect of four decades of income growth below the growth of per capita gross national income and estimate that aggregate income for the population below the 90th percentile over this time period would have been $2.5 trillion (67 percent) higher in 2018 had income growth since 1975 remained as equitable as it was in the first two post-War decades. From 1975 to 2018, the difference between the aggregate taxable income for those below the 90th percentile and the equitable growth counterfactual totals $47 trillion. We further explore trends in inequality by applying this metric within and across business cycles from 1975 to 2018 and also by demographic group.

I like to call that period "Gilded Age II", from how it resembles the late-19th-cy. Gilded Age. It looks like some Golden Age, except if one scratches the surface.

It started in the Carter years, and became full force in the Reagan years. I remember hoping that Bill Clinton's presidency would end it, but BC wimped out very early. Then Obama's presidency. But he also wimped out very early. I remember the Wisconsin Revolt and the Occupy movement. Both of them failed.

 

[ZiprHead]

Even worse, homeless mentally sick/substance abusing people living on the streets of the richest nations on earth.

Fixed your tautology.

Separating Fact from Fiction

Myth: The cause of homelessness is drug and alcohol abuse.

False. Only 20% of people report drugs and alcohol as the cause of their homelessness. Drug
and alcohol abuse are often the result of homelessness, not the cause.

Myth: Homelessness is a choice. Most homeless people choose to live on the streets.

False. According to the Homeless Census in Santa Clara County, 93% of homeless respondents
want affordable housing.

The biggest barrier to housing is affordable rent.

• 68% couldn’t afford rent
• 50% had no work or income
• 38% reported no available housing
• 20% had criminal records that prevented their access to housing

https://www.currytbcenter.ucsf.edu/sites/default/files/product_tools/homelessnessandtbtoolkit/docs/background/Factsheet/Debunking%20the%20Myths%20of%20Homelessness.pdf

 

[Metaphor]

We can add that to the list of things by which you are willfully addled,

But it isn't willful at all. I genuinely don't understand the headline, which is:

The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%

If I am to 'take' something from someone else, that other person would have to have had it in the first place. And to clarify that, a morally unjustified 'taking' (in my estimation) means you've deprived them of that thing and they had the right to it in the first place.

It is not at all clear to me how you go from 'this particular level of inequality existed in 1975, and any changes to inequality means one group is taking from another'. I'm sorry. It might seem obvious to you but it isn't obvious to me.

like my assertion that Donald will contest the election results regardless of the vote count. (I notice you've been really silent about that lately, and left the threads where you were trying to ridicule me for saying it.)

Gospa moja.

I did not challenge your saying that Trump would bloviate and complain or even challenge the election results. I challenged your idea that there is zero chance of a 'peaceful' exchange of power. I challenged the idea (put forward by someone else - possibly Jimmy Higgins) - that 'the military' was on his side. It is an insane fantasy that Trump will use non-peaceful means to prevent being outed.

I did notice your latest paranoid thread calling me out by name, but what, precisely do you want me to add to it? I can only say what I've said before:

i) Trump is a bloviator and narcissist who will have a hard time admitting defeat
ii) He doesn't have the support or the cojones to stage a military coup, nor does he want to
iii) The institutions and apparatus of American democracy is more than enough to ensure Trump will not be in power when his term expires, whether he agrees or not.

And on point iii), if somehow the institutions and apparatus of American democracy and the will of the people is subverted and overthrown by one bloviating man, I almost feel like America deserves it.

It is very difficult to educate a person who has inoculated himself against facts that run counter to their preconceptions.

Isn't it a day ending in -y? Time to start another thread about how scared you are Trump won't hand over power peacefully and call me obtuse for not agreeing with your hateboner phantasia.

 

[DBT]

There is more than one way to take something....

 

[barbos]

Myth: The cause of homelessness is drug and alcohol abuse.

False. Only 20% of people report drugs and alcohol as the cause of their homelessness. Drug
and alcohol abuse are often the result of homelessness, not the cause.

You are going with self-reporting? Also, even if it did not cause their homelessness it sure as hell causes continuation of their homelessness.

 

[lpetrich]

I like this comment:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Aggressive, overreaching wealth redistribution *does* happen in the United States, it just happens in the opposite direction conservatives scream about: our system takes money away from everyday people and siphons it towards the profanely wealthy. " / Twitter
noting
TIME on Twitter: "The top 1% of Americans have taken $50 trillion from the bottom 90%—and that's made the U.S. less secure https://t.co/o7Nm9JUOWI" / Twitter

 

[barbos]

The most enormous load of horse shit is countless number of threads masturbating about how 1% have more and more "wealth" than the rest.

What do you think is happening? That they are selling their mansions and yachts? That they are losing their wealth and becoming only as rich as average people?

So it IS about GDP (consumption)? you people need to meet and decide on coherent theory.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why do I think the income numbers weren't accurate during that period?

does it matter?
the specific numbers don't really matter when you have the existence of mansions and the existence of tenement housing in the same society.

Look at the claim--that the "more equitable" income distribution would have produced a very different outcome. I'm pointing out that we have no good basis for assuming the supposed different distribution ever existed. The left shows no interest in attempting to prove this, it just takes it on faith.