I bet if you plotted all 311Million people on a Bell Curve it would be almost perfect. Do you need help with that?
AwK - You're not serious about discussing the issue, which is obvious from your flippant one or two-sentence replies which seek to merely obfuscate the issue. It's the same tactic that you guys use time and again when this issue comes up. This is the second time in a couple of weeks that you've tried to drag a discussion down a semantics path (the other being the income/source of income disaster), and I'm not going to engage you on this one. You know exactly what I mean by sustainable, so don't play stupid. I know you're not stupid. You have argued that the top 100 richest people in the US has changed each year....what is your point? There will obviously be movement among the levels. But the movement that we can see is more and more of the wealth is moving towards one end of the spectrum. Do you believe that movement is happening? (If we disagree on the base premise, let's stop there and figure out who is right) If so, do you think we should continue to move in that direction? Should we care if wealth is concentrating at one end of the spectrum? What does it mean for the long-term? On a side note - what really gets me is that many of the conservatives ignore completely the concentration of wealth issue and then disparage the large % of Americans who don't pay net income taxes. Do you not get it that if more and more of the wealth is at one end of the spectrum, the rest of the folks have less and less? That's how it works. Wages for middle class folks have barely grown while the top brackets are taking home all the wealth that has been created over the last few decades. There's no trickle. It was a sham, and you fell for it and are continuing to fall for it.
No matter what methodology is employed, it is clear that the trend over the last 40-50 years is for wealth to be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Does history offer any examples of nations that have experienced a sustained, long term concentrating of wealth in which the final event is not revolution?
The health and stability of country is not judged by how well those at the top are doing, but by how those on the bottom are faring.
musberger nails a lot of the reasons for the bigger disparity. I think one of the biggest things we could do is remove the tax breaks for outsourcing companies. the income we eliminate from american workers by sending them to india, china, taiwan, whereverthefook ... we put more money into shareholders and executive pockets. I'd like to think we should keep the tax breaks for 250k plus income earners, but we need to cap that. we need to figure the demographic for small business owners and let them keep their tax breaks. at what income level does this pare off into big corporate earners? small businesses and medium sized companies are the people who hire the most people. the fairest way to fix taxes is to then, remove fraud and loopholes in the highest tax tier. i don't agree with just flat out raising their taxes, because they have as much a right to keep the income they earn fairly as the middle class does. but lets simplify the tax code and remove the loop holes and fraud.
Until companies such as Google are made to give up their tax havens in the Caymens, we cant' begin to have a serious discusssion about fariness.
How many jobs could these CEOs give out to lower income workers if they didn't need to make such a disproportionate salary? __________________________________________________ most lower income workers are uneducated, what is a ceo supposed to do? make hr hire someone for 50k a year and benefits and stick them in a file or copy room? most companies have too much dead weight anyway. it is almost impossible to fire someone as it is. if you are a union shop, you cant be fired unless you basically kill someone. the ceo has a job to do, make his company profitable for shareholders and grow every year. this class warfare talk is getting out of hand. we live in a free society. im not quite sure what i am hearing. i think im hearing that the government should get involved and take money away from these corporation and give it out. of course, where would the money go? if you think it would go to the little people, you are either stupid or one of the ones that would profit. actually, most ceo's make a base salary of about 10 times the avg. worker. they get other perks like bonuses and stock and other items but that is up to the board, not you. companies do not just hire people to give out money. employees have actual jobs to do. they are not the government. i realize a lot of pro gov folks on this board think money grows on trees and its ok to run a 1 trillion deficit every year but it doesnt work that way in the corporate world. it also depends on who you work for. i know of a guy that sold his company for about 6 billion. he gave every employee that had been with him 20+ years a million bucks, 15 years got 500k and everyone else 250k. like i said, you have free choice to work where you will. some people get left behind. that is unfortunate but it is not as if you are not given lots of opportunities in life. everyone gets a free education. some people have an easier road than others. that's life, it isnt fair. you can't legislate the good life, you have to work for it. we all have the freedom to pursue happiness but it isnt a right.
AwK - You're further proving my point. You respond to everything with one-liners. That's not serious discussion. You want to obfuscate and deflect and use anecdotes to stymie actual discussion. It's a waste of time.
How does the U.S. stack up against other countries in terms of intergenerational mobility? ________________________________________________ we have ther highest mobility rate of any other country. its why so many foreigners immigrate here.
Income inequality per se, is not a problem but the source of that inequality may be. If you're in the top 1% because you: 1.invested (and took actual risk) wisely---good for you, 2.invented something great and leveraged that into wealth---good for you 3. started a business and grew it --- good for you 4. were part of the lucky sperm club --- that sucks and the inheritance tax should have taken most of it (eg. Hilton, Bush, kennedy, Rockefellar clan or some bs like that) So its not the fact that there is a 1% club, but the fact that most of the members of the 1% club were probably members of the 5% club already by virtue of Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa. It's not the idea that there is a penthouse but the fact that most of the folks that get to reside there, started out on the 15th floor rather than the 1st floor in order to get there.
