As I said, I could give a rat's ass how rich the rich are. It doesn't have anything to do with me.
And I've already explained how it does.
I'm not any poorer because the rich have so much, and neither are the poor.
I can't say anything about your specific situation, nor do I expect you to tell us about your own financial condition.
That said, millions of people are, in fact, poorer because of the things that have made the wealthy even wealthier. Let's review a few.
1) Repeated tax cuts for the wealthy exert pressure to cut social safety nets.
2) The wealthy largely get and stay wealthy as a result of asset changes and manipulations. Let's see how this makes other people poorer.
a) Pressure for short-term stock gains pushes corporations to lay off staff.
b) It pushes corporations to move labor offshore.
c) It pushes corporations to automate heavily.
d) It pushes financial companies to increase their own risks, which are contagious, and can hurt the entire economy (e.g. financial collapse in 2007, did you forget that one already?)
e) Obviously, it encourages big companies to engage in fraud and take advantage of poor and middle-class people.
3) As the wealthy keep getting their way, they routinely remove protections for citizens, ranging from rolling back consumer protections, to rolling back critical regulations, to allowing corporations to pollute at will.
4) There is lots of evidence that income inequality reduces growth. And yes, that means it will ultimately hurt everyone, though it will clearly hit the poor more than the wealthy.
It is a fantasy to imagine that you are completely immune from any ill effects of the further deterioration of the economic condition of the entire nation.
You're talking about politicians being bought, aren't you? The liberal politicians who complain about income inequality so much are bought and paid for just as much as any politician is, some even more so.
This latest tax bill makes it very clear that Republicans have been bought and paid for. Don't even kid yourself on that score.
Along those lines: No one was lobbying Democrats to expand Medicaid spending, or to tighten up Medicare rules in order to make it more efficient. No one lobbied Obama to expand national monuments. No one lobbied Obama or Congress to create the Consumer Protection Bureau. No one lobbied Obama and Congress to increase the top marginal tax rate by 3%. The Koch Brothers did not throw millions at Democrats with the expectation they would get their way with them.
The Democrats (and few remaining conservatives and Republicans with backbones) are certainly not perfect, and the reality is that there is no way to win elections without big donors. That said, the past year -- especially this tax bill -- lays bare the corruption of the Republicans.
The trouble is, you guys believe that the economy is a zero sum game. You believe that every dollar the rich have buried in their back yards is a dollar taken away from John Smith.
lol
No, there is not a big pot of dollars sitting in the clouds, where only a limited number rains down every year. However, it
is a reality that the rich are getting richer now, not because of their own work, but because they keep bribing legislators into cutting their taxes.
When Bill Gates gets another million, John Smith gets more too.
That's not even remotely correct.
Bill Gates is no longer drawing a salary from any company. When Bill Gates "gets another million," these days that's because Microsoft (or some other stock he holds) has risen in value. By definition, this means that his net worth has increased because of work that thousands of other people have done. Absolutely nothing about that process confers any benefit whatsoever on John Smith, whoever he may be.
Smith may not directly lose money -- but he certainly loses influence. Gates can throw money at politicians, he can buy ads, he can buy PR campaigns, he can throw tens or hundreds of millions at his pet projects and personal priorities.
It also isn't that hard to imagine situations where Gates benefits when someone else is harmed. Specifically, let's say Microsoft announces it will fire 5,000 employees. This boosts Microsoft's stock price (Gates gains) while those 5,000 employees are obviously out of a job.
