Wealth Distribution in the USA

donegal__road

I saw this video clip a couple of days ago, and it is pretty shocking. I know it is 6 minutes long, so to cut to the chase...
1% of the population of the USA own 40% of the wealth (54 trillion dollars in 2009 being the total wealth). On the chart shown in the video, the middle class are barely distinguishable from the poor.

Many of the 1% wealthiest in the USA pay as little as 15% tax, while the lowest income workers pay one third of what they earn in taxes.

For those who don't have the time to watch this video, there is a screen-shot I have taken from the clip below the youtube video, which shows how badly skewed the distribution of wealth is in the US.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

lertsnim

I'm sure it is pretty disturbing for this country too.

I thought this was common knowledge?

Ugo Monye spacecraft experience

lertsnim wrote: »

I'm sure it is pretty disturbing for this country too.

I doubt it, we have a progressive tax system where the top 10% of earners are paying 60% of the tax

More you earn the more you pay

Jonny7

Ugo Monye spacecraft experience wrote: »

I doubt it, we have a progressive tax system where the top 10% of earners are paying 60% of the tax

More you earn the more you pay

If so, why have so many foreigners relocated to Ireland for tax reasons..

K-9

Kind of makes me wonder about trickle down economics.

Ugo Monye spacecraft experience

Jonny7 wrote: »

If so, why have so many foreigners relocated to Ireland for tax reasons..

Corporation tax is different

It's an undisputed fact that the higher your income the higher the percentage of income as you pay as an individual

Jonny7

Ugo Monye spacecraft experience wrote: »

Corporation tax is different

It's an undisputed fact that the higher your income the higher the percentage of income as you pay as an individual

Damon Hill moved here for tax reasons, have been several others, can't remember off the top of my head

thebaz

What I don't understand is how the Tea Party conservative Republicans are so popular , with ther anti Tax scaremongering policy , that in reality just looks after this privilleged 1% - sure the 1% will vote and support them , but they have well over 1% support, which I just cant comprehend.

diograis

thebaz wrote: »

What I don't understand is how the Tea Party conservative Republicans are so popular , with ther anti Tax scaremongering policy , that in reality just looks after this privilleged 1% - sure the 1% will vote and support them , but they have well over 1% support, which I just cant comprehend.

rabble rousing, plain and simple. "Obama's gonna take your gun and start mandatory abortions!" never underestimate the ignorance of an uneducated American.

FTA69

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2013/oct/08/inequality-how-wealth-distributed-uk-animated-video

The above shows a similar thing in the UK.

Stinicker

thebaz wrote: »

What I don't understand is how the Tea Party conservative Republicans are so popular , with ther anti Tax scaremongering policy , that in reality just looks after this privilleged 1% - sure the 1% will vote and support them , but they have well over 1% support, which I just cant comprehend.

The middle classes support them, they feed off the fear of the middle classes who are squeezed by Obama and this squeezing is being used to elevate the lower classes up closer to the middle classes; this breeds fear and there is also a massive racial factor which is unspoken of but latent racism is one of the biggest factors motivating people towards the tea party and neo-con rightwing, here you have a black president, hammering you with taxes, lowering you down into the ground and then using that money to elevate his own people the minority up closer to your status which you worked hand for and struggled for.

The Tea Party supporters have good reason to be afraid but their policies are pretty stupid and Obama should hammer the 1% and reward the middle classes and give some to the poor and minorities too but his hammering of the middle classes is what has broken America. The 1% of the wealth could be considered dead money because they just hoard it and don't spend and are only important to the luxury sector of the economy. What Obama is doing is nothing like Socialism it is something similar to Zanu-PF policies in Zimbabwe which wiped out the the middle class to give money to the less well-off, shortly afterwards the country turned from breadbasket of Africa to basketcase.

American corporations need to be hauled in, make them pay their taxes in America not over here and shackle the super-rich and not the WASP middle-class american who has always been the engine who powered the country forward.

People love to bemoan George W. Bush, but when the ****storm crisis developed with Lehman in 2008 he grabbed some popcorn sat back and let them burn, taking a more Laissze-faire approach to allow the market to correct itself. Obama came in and started pumping trillions of dollars into the 1%'s pocket, then all he had to do was throw a few dollars down to the minorities and he mopped up over 95% of the ethnic minority vote which was enough to swing the election as White people are split fairly evenly with party support between Democratic and GOP support.

History will ultimately judge Bush in a far fairer light than Obama, Bush had neck and would have bombed Assad to kingdom come and invaded Iran if he got a third term, Obama lacks any of this and seems hell bent on a single mission of wiping out the WASP Middle class while enriching the 1% and securing the minority vote.

FTA69

Stinicker wrote: »

Bush had neck and would have bombed Assad to kingdom come and invaded Iran if he got a third term

Sounds like a great course of action.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

how does other people having lots of money make my life any worse?

Grayson

Stinicker wrote: »

The middle classes support them, they feed off the fear of the middle classes who are squeezed by Obama and this squeezing is being used to elevate the lower classes up closer to the middle classes; this breeds fear and there is also a massive racial factor which is unspoken of but latent racism is one of the biggest factors motivating people towards the tea party and neo-con rightwing, here you have a black president, hammering you with taxes, lowering you down into the ground and then using that money to elevate his own people the minority up closer to your status which you worked hand for and struggled for.

The Tea Party supporters have good reason to be afraid but their policies are pretty stupid and Obama should hammer the 1% and reward the middle classes and give some to the poor and minorities too but his hammering of the middle classes is what has broken America. The 1% of the wealth could be considered dead money because they just hoard it and don't spend and are only important to the luxury sector of the economy. What Obama is doing is nothing like Socialism it is something similar to Zanu-PF policies in Zimbabwe which wiped out the the middle class to give money to the less well-off, shortly afterwards the country turned from breadbasket of Africa to basketcase.

American corporations need to be hauled in, make them pay their taxes in America not over here and shackle the super-rich and not the WASP middle-class american who has always been the engine who powered the country forward.

People love to bemoan George W. Bush, but when the ****storm crisis developed with Lehman in 2008 he grabbed some popcorn sat back and let them burn, taking a more Laissze-faire approach to allow the market to correct itself. Obama came in and started pumping trillions of dollars into the 1%'s pocket, then all he had to do was throw a few dollars down to the minorities and he mopped up over 95% of the ethnic minority vote which was enough to swing the election as White people are split fairly evenly with party support between Democratic and GOP support.

History will ultimately judge Bush in a far fairer light than Obama, Bush had neck and would have bombed Assad to kingdom come and invaded Iran if he got a third term, Obama lacks any of this and seems hell bent on a single mission of wiping out the WASP Middle class while enriching the 1% and securing the minority vote.

lehman burned because their CEO was a cnut. He was despised in the financial industry. The guys running the treasury were all former goldman sachs employees. That's why Goldman's and their friends got a bailout and lehman didn't.
Here's an interesting but long article about it
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405

I did read an interesting article in the guardian this morning (I know:) but seriously listen to the point before judging). People are generally more anti poverty than anti race. And by that I mean that people despise poor people more than a particular race. For example we want rich immegrants, not poor ones. When people demonise minorities it's the poor sections, not the rich sections. I'm not saying that it's a general rule, obviously there are people who are just racists, but I do think it's an interesting point that does have some validity.

K-9

thebaz wrote: »

What I don't understand is how the Tea Party conservative Republicans are so popular , with ther anti Tax scaremongering policy , that in reality just looks after this privilleged 1% - sure the 1% will vote and support them , but they have well over 1% support, which I just cant comprehend.

Well funded slick machines invest huge sums in advertising.

Stinicker wrote: »

The middle classes support them, they feed off the fear of the middle classes who are squeezed by Obama and this squeezing is being used to elevate the lower classes up closer to the middle classes; this breeds fear and there is also a massive racial factor which is unspoken of but latent racism is one of the biggest factors motivating people towards the tea party and neo-con rightwing, here you have a black president, hammering you with taxes, lowering you down into the ground and then using that money to elevate his own people the minority up closer to your status which you worked hand for and struggled for.

The Tea Party supporters have good reason to be afraid but their policies are pretty stupid and Obama should hammer the 1% and reward the middle classes and give some to the poor and minorities too but his hammering of the middle classes is what has broken America. The 1% of the wealth could be considered dead money because they just hoard it and don't spend and are only important to the luxury sector of the economy. What Obama is doing is nothing like Socialism it is something similar to Zanu-PF policies in Zimbabwe which wiped out the the middle class to give money to the less well-off, shortly afterwards the country turned from breadbasket of Africa to basketcase.

American corporations need to be hauled in, make them pay their taxes in America not over here and shackle the super-rich and not the WASP middle-class american who has always been the engine who powered the country forward.

People love to bemoan George W. Bush, but when the ****storm crisis developed with Lehman in 2008 he grabbed some popcorn sat back and let them burn, taking a more Laissze-faire approach to allow the market to correct itself. Obama came in and started pumping trillions of dollars into the 1%'s pocket, then all he had to do was throw a few dollars down to the minorities and he mopped up over 95% of the ethnic minority vote which was enough to swing the election as White people are split fairly evenly with party support between Democratic and GOP support.

History will ultimately judge Bush in a far fairer light than Obama, Bush had neck and would have bombed Assad to kingdom come and invaded Iran if he got a third term, Obama lacks any of this and seems hell bent on a single mission of wiping out the WASP Middle class while enriching the 1% and securing the minority vote.

The middle classes being squeezed isn't a new thing under Obama, it's going on for years with middle income families income largely stagnant. Government and taxes always seem to get the blame, not companies cost cutting, outsourcing and low wages, with Government subsidising minimum wage level jobs.

biko

CEO wages have increased beyond scope and for some countries it's worse than others.

In Sweden an average CEO earns as much as 89 of the average workers combined.
In UK 84 times as much.
In Portugal 53 times as much.
Germany is jump higher at 147 times as much.

But in the US it is a mind blowing 354 times as much!

And the company that makes the most? Apple!
Four out of the five highest-paid executives in S&P 500 companies all worked at Apple. Bob Mansfield, who runs Apple's hardware engineering group earned €65.54m, largely in share awards, with legal head Bruce Sewell pocketing €52.9m. Senior Apple executives Jeffrey Williams and Peter Oppenheimer both earned about €52m each.
That's why your iphone is so expensive...

long range shooter

No wonder the yanks fear socialism

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

how does other people having lots of money make my life any worse?

Because it's omg not fair and I demand some too just because

Jonny7

biko wrote: »

CEO wages have increased beyond scope and for some countries it's worse than others.

In Sweden an average CEO earns as much as 89 of the average workers combined.
In UK 84 times as much.
In Portugal 53 times as much.
Germany is jump higher at 147 times as much.

Do you have the link for this if you don't mind, am a little skeptical

The average CEO of what exactly? a huge basket of companies or just extremely large or profit orientated ones, e.g. investment banks

Karl Stein

K-9 wrote: »

Kind of makes me wonder about trickle down economics.

Makes you wonder? It's bollocks.

biko

Jonny7 wrote: »

Do you have the link for this if you don't mind, am a little skeptical

The average CEO of what exactly? a huge basket of companies or just extremely large or profit orientated ones, e.g. investment banks

Good point
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/topearning-irish-bosses-shared-almost-60m-in-pay-29210678.html
http://www.aflcio.org/Corporate-Watch/CEO-Pay-and-You/CEO-to-Worker-Pay-Gap-in-the-United-States/Pay-Gaps-in-the-World

Jonny7

Ah okay, it's a bit of a skewed view - if we took all companies and businesses, it would probably average out a lot lower, the CEO making approx 3 or 4 times lowest paid employee

Essentially the FTSE 100 companies can be compared to the film industry - the top actors, directors and screenwriters get paid many times that of the lower down employees, generally for the obvious reasons.

SEPT 23 1989

Where would we be without the 1%?

Karl Stein

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

how does other people having lots of money make my life any worse?

This is not rocket science. Extremes of wealth create an imbalance of power and allows an oligarchy to emerge and rig the game in their favour (sound familiar?).

When you have an oligarchy pulling the strings you can be damn sure they're not trying to increase wages, working conditions or health coverage for fast food workers.

stevedublin

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Where would we be without the 1%?

better off

Jonny7

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Where would we be without the 1%?

If you earn more than, what is it, 32k euros per year, then you're in the 1%

steddyeddy

Ugo Monye spacecraft experience wrote: »

I doubt it, we have a progressive tax system where the top 10% of earners are paying 60% of the tax

More you earn the more you pay

It should be.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

darkpagandeath

Originally Posted by Ugo Monye spacecraft experience View Post
I doubt it, we have a progressive tax system where the top 10% of earners are paying 60% of the tax

More you earn the more you pay

And after you have payed your fancy accountant to get you out of 52% of it if not more ? As you have the money to

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

thebaz

Stinicker wrote: »

History will ultimately judge Bush in a far fairer light than Obama, Bush had neck and would have bombed Assad to kingdom come and invaded Iran if he got a third term, Obama lacks any of this and seems hell bent on a single mission of wiping out the WASP Middle class while enriching the 1% and securing the minority vote.

Bush was and is in that 1% Upper class;
Obama cares about the 99% , Bush looked after his own - I hope the history books will reflect this.

drumswan

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

how does other people having lots of money make my life any worse?

Is this a serious question? Wealth is a finite resource, if its hoarded by a tiny part of the population it obviously impacts negatively on the rest.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Grayson

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Apple makes loads, but look at how many people they actually employ in the US and look at where they store their money. It's the nasty thing about tech companies (And to be completly honest, I work for one).

Wompa1

Some of the tax rates being thrown around on this thread are false. I'm paying US Federal tax and ON PAPER the wealthy pay more. That being said, it's just like in Ireland and likely every developed country around the world, in that, what's on paper likely isn't what they are paying.

Even when not on paper, the wealthy are likely paying more in tax. Could they pay more? Yeah. Should they? I think all of the loop holes need to be closed.

For the United States, money needs to be taken out of politics. Corporations should not own the government. The FDA and USDA are approving products here which are an abomination. Americans here seek out Coca Cola imported from Mexico, rather than drink the High Fructose corn syrup batch here. There's feckin wood in bread, the Bread here is also laced with Sugar.

You have to go to a Market to get quality products here. If you go to a Mexican market, they are actually cheaper than Walmart! If you go to WholeFoods or Sprouts, you'll end up spending close to what you would spend back home in Ireland.

Something stinks here, that's for sure. But then, every country has it's problems. I'm starting to think that the Irish government just acts in a more secretive manner.

Geuze

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

how does other people having lots of money make my life any worse?

Their increasing share of income, means a lower share of total income for you.

Real wages for average workers have been stagnant for decades in the US, which incomes of the top 10% have been rising.

Unless you are a member of the top 10%, you are worse off.


Example: GDP-per-worker and GDP-per-person have risen over last 20-30 in the USA, but have not been followed by similar rises in real wages.

Real wages have in some sense "decoupled" from the output of the worker.

The worker is more productive, yet somebody else is capturing those gains in income.

Wompa1

Geuze wrote: »

Their increasing share of income, means a lower share of total income for you.

Real wages for average workers have been stagnant for decades in the US, which incomes of the top 10% have been rising.

Depends on your source. Heard the other day that the majority of middle income Americans have recieved a pay increase over the last 2 years and\or took a job which paid more.

Where I am, the people I have spoken to have said the recession was a blip. There was a bad 2 year period but for the most part things were ok. There's also been job growth and an up swing in the housing market.

donegal__road

here is a screen-shot of the wealth distribution graph that wouldn't fit on the screen in the video.

JONJO THE MISER

thebaz wrote: »

What I don't understand is how the Tea Party conservative Republicans are so popular , with ther anti Tax scaremongering policy , that in reality just looks after this privilleged 1% - sure the 1% will vote and support them , but they have well over 1% support, which I just cant comprehend.

Its called brain washing the ignorant and poor.

I am pie

All J curve trajectories end up in spectacular collapse or at least dramatic decline. Wealth concentration in a very small minority surely cannot be immune. Something, at some stage, has to give.

Geuze

Jonny7 wrote: »

If you earn more than, what is it, 32k euros per year, then you're in the 1%

That is not correct.

I haven't time now, but look at this:

http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/silc/2011/silc_2011.pdf


Top decile in Ireland, i.e. top 10% of pop:

http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/silc/2009/silc_2009.pdf


Earned income = 2915 pw
Social transfers = 307 pw
Gross = 3,222pw
Direct tax = 946 pw

Disposable = 2276 pw

So to be in the top 10% you need to be earning well beyond 100k household income

Geuze

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2011/11/taxing_the_1.html

US income and wealth dist data.


More here:

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2011/10/cbo_on_income_i.html

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Wompa1

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted. think it's down to greed.

donegal__road

BBC Panorama clip on poverty in the States, made in 2012.

20,000,000 Americans (half the poor) earn less than $11,000 per annum for a family of 4.

K-9

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

That's what the OP is about so barring some political point scoring about Obama, it's reinforcing the OP's point.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Seaneh

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Actually the video addressed both wealth inequality AND income inequality.

thebaz

Permabear wrote: »

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lol - don't believe all you read - the reality is, Obama cares a lot more for the less fortunate than Bush - Obamacare is about helping 40 % or so in the U.S. who live in fear of getting sick - Bush , and most of his family , were born into New England money , and really only care about themselves and ther 1% cronies. The reality is Obama is trying to make a fairer U.S. after years off Bush's years of Greed, that ended up nearly bankrupting the country. Similar to Ireland , the way some people have forgotton how Fianna Fail created our own current economic mess, and just blame Fine Gael and Labour for todays austerity.

Geuze

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

No.

But you are relatively worse off than you could have been if workers and wages had maintained their share of overall income.