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The 1% will own more than the 99% by 2016, report says

uh that fails
Got it, a record of a point in time does not, cannot, exist....and at that point in time captured wealth cannot be understood to exist in a finite amount......because as you so eloquently stated:

"uh...."
 
sure you can try and take a snapshot but it is already out of date by the time you try and process it.
You just admitted that finite amounts of wealth exist at a point in time.
 
Geez, you people can't hold anything still, there either is or is not at any single point in time a finite amount of captured wealth on this planet.

So which is it?

What is wealth? We can create an infinite number of numbers on a computer and call it money. It doesn't matter if the Mona Lisa sells for a buck at the dollar general or a trillion dollars to somebody--there is only 1 Mona Lisa.
 
What is wealth? .
There is a process of repeating a word until it becomes just the utterance of meaningless tones. I sincerely hope you are not also going down this absurd path as the others are.
 
good thing we can always add more pie. something you still don't seem to get.

We have been adding more pie for 30 years and nearly all of it has gone to the top 5%. That's what share of total income increases mean.

images
 
There is a process of repeating a word until it becomes just the utterance of meaningless tones. I sincerely hope you are not also going down this absurd path as the others are.

It is an important point. The top 1% that will own "half the wealth", will they own half the land? Will they own half the water? As I said before, there is only one Mona Lisa so what does it matter if the price for it is $1 as opposed to $100 as opposed to $1,000,000,000.00? Isn't the "wealth" that the Walton heirs own contingent on how much money the next person is willing to buy it for? Surely you do not think that the property and cash registers and warehouses full of pickles is why their "wealth" is what it is?
 
Yeah.. but I would argue that this cycle starts with the perception by business that government can be profitable. There is a reason why industries usually lobby for regulation.




Sure - make it unprofitable by sharply reducing the governments' ability to steer resources and provide competitive regulatory advantage.
Great idea.
Will the lobbyists allow the government to do so? Will government give up power?

Certainly not voluntarily.
 
Name for me one rich person that prevented you from joining them or actually hurt you and your family? We take money out of politics by implementing term limits but politicians aren't going to support that. Right now it isn't the rich causing the problem it is the politicians buying the votes of the poor and middle class with their promises and growth in entitlement spending.

How can African Americans support Obama when their unemployment rate is over 10%. Free handouts!!

How about the social liberals whose number one issue is either pot or SSM? Obama supports those causes with his rhetoric. these people are too damn stupid to vote because without a strong growing economy the social issues will never be solved but their votes will be bought.

How about all those ads about Free Healthcare supplements? Do you know anything in this country that is free? Someone is paying for it and it is the taxpayers who actually pay taxes.

We have a bunch of idiots who have been brainwashed not even knowing what their taxes are and what those taxes fund nor do they appear to give a damn. We are in a sad state here in this country today and I blame it all on liberalism and their ignorance of reality.
That's because you define "liberalism" as anything that is contrary to your world view, and you don't understand the influence of money on political decisions.

It take a lot of money to brainwash idiots, you know.
 
You just admitted that finite amounts of wealth exist at a point in time.

strawman. way to ignore the rest of the post but that is what you people do.
 
We have been adding more pie for 30 years and nearly all of it has gone to the top 5%. That's what share of total income increases mean.

images

yet people can still buy houses, cars, TV, they still get their pay checks etc ...
why? because we can simply add more to the pie as we need to as the economy grows.
 
yet people can still buy houses, cars, TV, they still get their pay checks etc ...
why? because we can simply add more to the pie as we need to as the economy grows.


Nothing defines "american exceptionalism" better than prolonged economic stagnation for 95%
 
The Bush tax cuts- some say the rich benefited - some say middle class did- who received what?
I used a family of 4 - differing incomes.
I thought that would make it easier.



From your link:

"4. Increased take-home pay for middle-class workers: While much of the perks from the Bush tax cuts flowed to the top, they also helped middle-class earners, who kept more of their earnings because of reduced tax rates. This was especially important in the last decade, since median wages stagnated, and it may be one reason why Democrats so readily pushed to extend most of the Bush tax cuts. This chart is based on data from the Congressional Budget Office. The red line shows the pre-tax average income of the middle quintile of income earners. As you can see, it is pretty flat in the 2000s. (Median income -- as opposed to average -- actually declined.) The blue line shows, however, that taxes were taking less money out of middle-class paychecks after the Bush tax cuts were put in place, offsetting some of the slow wage growth."


I am not sure what you are trying to point out here or what you are trying to argue.
 
Um, that is a percent of homes owned overall, not a percent of homes owned by "the middle class".

You lost track of your own argument.

edit:
The least affordable U.S. markets, and the percentage of homes for sale in each where median-income Americans can afford to buy, are:
San Francisco, 14 percent
Los Angeles, 23 percent
Orange County, Calif., 24 percent
New York/New Jersey Metro, 25 percent
San Diego, 28 percent
Ventura County, Calif., 29 percent
San Jose, Calif., 34 percent
Fairfield County, Conn., 37 percent
Honolulu, 39 percent
Oakland, Calif., 40 percent.
In addition, some popular metro areas had particularly steep drops in affordability in the past year. In Denver, the share of affordable homes slid to 50 percent from 67 percent. The figure fell to 29 percent from 43 percent in Ventura County, and to 48 percent from 62 percent in San Antonio.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com Study: It's Getting Harder for Middle Class to Afford Buying a Home




Sorry, I don't consider newsmax a source.


But stop and think about what you posted.


we know NJ has a 68% home ownership rate.


How many are middle class in NJ vs how many are upper class?


Follow the logic and hopefully you will see where your point doesnt make much sense.
 
Well poor people pay taxes and consume goods. So one way or another can you tell me how the money you received was in some way NOT from a poor person.
Nope.
Thank you




Poor people pay very little in taxes and reap the rewards of a welfare state.


Guess%20Who%20Really%20Pays%20the%20Taxes.jpg
 
It's not relevant to the discussion, but I'm doing fine and haven't complained at all about my financial situation.

Why? Many reasons, but among them is we've offshored jobs that produce actual wealth - making things - and substituted those jobs with crap low value added service jobs. We call that 'free trade' to pit U.S. workers and plants against third world locations that don't meet even minimal environmental or working condition standards, then allow those goods to be imported here tariff free. The result is predictable.

For the record, asking how a rich person prevented me from joining them misses the point. Not everyone can be above average, and what we're talking about is the economy as a whole, not my place in it. And the fact is the rules of the game established by 'the rich' guaranteed that U.S. workers, as a group, lost. U.S. workers cannot compete with plants that allow pollution in China so thick you can't see a quarter mile on 'clear' days. So they shut down here, threw millions of hard workers out of a good job making things of real value, replaced by stocking shelves in Walmart.

It is totally relevant since many here put faceless names to graphs and charts. You are doing well, I am doing well and both of us are on those graphs thus no rich person hurt us at all so why is it so important to raise taxes on them other than to punish them for their successes? You think it is the role of the govt. to create equal outcome?
 
Don't worry about it. The new Republican majorities in both houses have YOUR best interests in mind.





hmmmm.


$Alan Grayson's net worth: 16.69 million

Grayson is the 21st wealthiest member of Congress, according to Roll Call, with a net worth of $16.69 million. He reportedly has a serious knack for stocks, which was what ultimately brought down Chapman's scheme.Dec 9, 2013

BTW, his "income" comes from capital gains.


If this little bitch was serious, why hasn't he written a check to the treasury?


ruling class hypocrite.
 
It is an important point. The top 1% that will own "half the wealth", will they own half the land? Will they own half the water? As I said before, there is only one Mona Lisa so what does it matter if the price for it is $1 as opposed to $100 as opposed to $1,000,000,000.00? Isn't the "wealth" that the Walton heirs own contingent on how much money the next person is willing to buy it for? Surely you do not think that the property and cash registers and warehouses full of pickles is why their "wealth" is what it is?

If they own something the rest of us....ALL of us....need, then yeah, a select few owning most or all of it DOES matter.
 
Therein lies your problem--you are too quick to try to personalize discussions when anecdotal nonsense is just nonsense in relation to the subject at hand. I don't see you as not smart--I see you as stubborn when there is no reason for stubbornness. Regardless,. congratulations on having done quite well for yourself. Other people, however, may have other priorities and motives than what you assume they do or should have.

No, what I am trying to do is get you to think. There is nothing but the individual responsible for not achieving that upper class. It isn't nonsense at all because I am part of those graphs and part of the history of workers. Now tell me why you want to punish rich people for their success? Wealth is an individual thing and I know a lot of people who meet the definition of middle class that are very wealthy in so many things. There isn't a rich person out there that has any affect on my life whatsoever
 
Again, for hard of understanding, I never said a pie does not grow, I said at any point in time, there is a finite amount.

Which is and entirely worthless observation.
 
Here's the thing. It doesn't really matter how much rich people own. It really doesn't. What matters is that there is a means for everyone else other than the rich to gain ownership of the things they need or want. And what's happening is, fewer and fewer people are controlling those means. And they aren't the best stewards, as was glaringly obvious in 2008. Their interests don't aline with the rest of ours. When they own the banks, and due to mismanagement, crash our entire economy, that's a problem. When they own the farms, and due to greed and further mismanagement, those farms close, that becomes a problem. When they own the stores and factories, and greed compels them to replace american workers with foreigners with no rights, or with robots, WITHOUT passing their savings from doing so onto the consumer, that becomes a MAJOR, CATASTROPHIC freaking problem.

I could give two ****s about how many ferrarris one rich guy owns. What I care about is, when he owns so much within our economy that I personally need, and when his treatment of those things makes MY life demonstrably harder or worse. The wealthy are stacking the deck, because they have the MEANS to. Through both major parties, they are killing anything even remotely resembling a free economy, that is, one in which the might CAN fall, to be replaced by the next guy in line.

ONE company owns about 50% of ALL of our potable water, and they are constantly buying more spring and aquafer land. ONE guy runs that company. If he runs that company into the ground, do you think failure will be an option?

ONE company controls the bulk of all agriculture in this country. Do you think that's OK?
 
Which is and entirely worthless observation.

No it's not, because it debunks the myth that there is never "not enough" due to economic growth.

The idea that there is infinite wealth, or resources, that our economy can just grow, flies in the face of science.
 
No, what I am trying to do is get you to think. There is nothing but the individual responsible for not achieving that upper class. It isn't nonsense at all because I am part of those graphs and part of the history of workers. Now tell me why you want to punish rich people for their success? Wealth is an individual thing and I know a lot of people who meet the definition of middle class that are very wealthy in so many things. There isn't a rich person out there that has any affect on my life whatsoever


It's not about punishment. It's about making our society solvent, while improving our economy, and preparing for the future.


Also, there are PLENTY of rich people who have an affect on your life, personally....you're just not thinking broadly enough.
 
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