Community | November 08, 2009 | 84 comments

Have the mega-rich achieved victory in their class-war?

source: http://www.alternet.org/story/143678/have_the_very_wealthy_achieved_victory_in_their_class-war/

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asherp
How rich—and powerful—have today’s rich become? Some numbers can help tell the story. In 1974, the most affluent 1% of Americans averaged, in today’s dollars, $380,000 in income.

Now let’s fast-forward. In 2007, the most recent year with stats, households in America’s top 1% averaged $1.4 million, well over triple what top 1% households averaged back in 1974—and, remember, this tripling came after adjusting for inflation.

Americans in the bottom 90%, meanwhile, saw their average incomes increase a meager $47 a year between 1974 and 2007, not enough to foot the bill for a month’s worth of cable TV.

The bottom line: top-1% households made 12 times more income than bottom-90% households in 1974, 42 times more in 2007.

The numbers become even more striking when we go back a bit further in time and focus not on the top 1%, but on the richest of the rich, the top 400, the living symbol of wealth and power in the United States ever since America’s original Gilded Age in the late 19th century.

In 1955, our 400 highest incomes averaged $12.3 million, in today’s dollars. But the top 400 in 1955 didn’t get to enjoy all those millions. On average, after exploiting every tax loophole they could find, they actually paid over half their incomes, 51.2%, in federal income tax.

Today’s super rich are doing better, fantastically better, both before and after taxes. In 2006, the top 400 averaged an astounding $263 million each in income. These 400 financially fortunate paid, after loopholes, just 17.2% of their incomes in federal tax.

After taxes, as a group, the top 400 of 2006 had $84 billion more in their pockets than 1955’s top 400, $84 billion more they could put to work bankrolling politicians and right-wing think tanks and Swift Boat ad blitzes against progressive candidates and causes.

How could America’s super rich have so little, relatively speaking, back in 1955 and so much today? What has changed between the mid 20th century and the first decade of the 21st? We have lost, simply put, the economic checks and balances that so significantly discouraged grand concentrations of private wealth in the years right after World War II.

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84 comments // Have the mega-rich achieved victory in their class-war?

  • rickm8
  • Rashpal
  • WhiteNoise
  • WhiteNoise
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • Image

    • Exactamundo dear prole ;)

      The formula is astonishingly simple...

      PRIVATIZE THE PROFITS
      SOCIALIZE THE COST

      "Politics is the showbiz of industry." - Frank Zappa

    • 2 years ago
  • Mark701
    • 0
      Mark701  

    • There are two books that people should read which explain why todays super rich are super rich. They are "Perfectly Legal" and "Free Lunch" by David Cay Johnson who just happens to be a card carrying Republican. In his books he details and gives numerous examples of how our tax system has been tweaked to transfer vast amounts of middle class wealth to large corporates and a select few super rich families.

      One small example: People who receive millions in yearly compensation, such a actors, sports figures, talking heads, investment brokers etc. can place that money into an interest accruing trust fund BEFORE it is taxed. Only the money they withdraw from the account to live on is taxed pretty much guaranteeing that all of it will NEVER be taxed. Compare that to most wage earners whose paycheck is taxed in full before its even placed in their hands.

      The taxes not paid by the wealthy must be made up by the middle class. In short WE end up subsidizing THEM. This is one tiny example, of how, over the last quarter century the laws have been changed to favor the wealthy. Read the books to get a good understanding of why we're struggling and they are cruising easy street. One recommendation however, don't read them before you go to bed because you'll be too pissed to fall asleep.

    • 2 years ago
  • s0uthc0ast
    • 0
      s0uthc0ast  

    • Who do you think paid for 0bama's victory?
      Poor people?
      C'mon.
      Don't you know who George Soros is?
      Don't you remember rich Hollywood folks paying 21k to have dinner with the dope?
      Look how liberal Manhattan is and the concentration of wealth there.

    • 2 years ago
  • loupetho
    • 0
      loupetho  

    • Bring on the revolution against corporate American. I'm sure I could rustle up a few mates here in France to come over and give you a hand. We did during your war of independence, so why not now ... besides, we owe you one for WWII ... oh yer, the first one too.

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • Image
    • loupetho:

      VIVE LAFAYETTE :)

      Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (or Lafayette) (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834) was a French aristocrat and military officer born in the province of Auvergne in south central France. Lafayette was a general in the American Revolutionary War and a leader of the Garde Nationale during the French Revolution.

      In the American Revolution, Lafayette served in the Continental Army under George Washington. Wounded during the Battle of Brandywine, he still managed to organize a successful retreat. He served with distinction in the Battle of Rhode Island. In the middle of the war, he returned to France to negotiate an increased French commitment. On his return, he blocked troops led by Cornwallis at Yorktown while the armies of Washington and Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, prepared for battle against the British.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_du_Motier,_marquis_de_Lafayette

    • 2 years ago
  • loupetho
    • 0
      loupetho  
    • loupetho:

      Thanks for the post WhiteNoise ... many of these issues are bigger than just the USA. There's a saying, when the US sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold.

    • 2 years ago
  • denport
    • 0
      denport  

    • Lets see. Work hard and become a millionaire. Work at $10/hour, 2000 hours / year, that $20,000/ year. Divide that into $1,000,000. It would take you 50 years to earn a million dollars. Provided that you did not eat or live in a house or have insurance. Most millionaires come from old money, not from working hard.

    • 2 years ago
  • CreditFigaro
    • 0
      CreditFigaro  
    • denport:

      I would disagree with that, it's pretty easy to become a millionaire if you save your money well. Only 8 individuals on the forbes 400 are worth less than 1 bill. No one less than 900 Mil.

      Millionaires are good. They come from thrift and hard work. Billionaires come from extortion.

    • 2 years ago
  • denport
  • corndog67
    • 0
      corndog67  
    • denport:

      If you are educated, work hard and only make $10/hour, after any amount of time, you are in the wrong business. Or took the wrong classes in school.

      Are you guys trying to tell me that Bill Gates manipulated stocks and got government handouts for creating, in a garage, operating systems, employing tens of thousands of people, building up his business from nothing into the most profitable business in the world, at least it was a few years ago, is a crook? How about Steve Jobs and Apple? The guys from Ben and Jerrys Ice Cream? Sure, there are some crooks out there, but some people seem to think they all are. The crooks are the minority.

      And how much should a person be allowed to make? Someone mentioned that becoming a biliionaire is not good. Why not? I'm just a working stiff like most people, but some people seem to think that anyone that has a load of money is crooked and a piece of shit. It sounds like jealousy and an entitlement attitude going on. They have it, I should too. Go back to school, make more money, get a better job, move on with your life.

      I think thinking you couldn't possibly become successful because all those that did, did it the sleazy way, is letting yourself get beat before you even start. If you don't think that you can do it, you won't even try. Nobody is going to give it to you.

    • 2 years ago
  • denport
    • 0
      denport  
    • denport:

      Where did I blast Steve Job ? Where did I blast anyone who made it big with their own talents ?? You read too much into my statement. Name calling shows that you are losing the argument. I simple stated that no one became a millionaire by working at an hourly job. Try sticking to the facts.

    • 2 years ago
  • thedirtman
    • 0
      thedirtman  

    • A Republican Plan to Save Us All

      The Democrats don't know what it takes to run a country. They hate America and want to turn America over to a ruthless dictator like Stalin. So, let's get all the hard-working God-fearing Republicans that love their country together and do the right thing to save the country. Only rich people have proven their worth and shown that they know how to run things, so let's throw our support to them. Send ALL of your money to a rich person, immediately. Don't save a penny. You won't need it. The rich people will put our country to work so hard that there will be floods of it. Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and George Soros need a whole lot of money now in order for money to trickle back and multiply. If you don't your children will live a painful life under Fidel Castro and have all their money taken away from them.

      Let's see, fantasy, fear, smear... maybe I can make a living in politics?

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • WATCH IT IN ITS ENTIRETY NOW !!!
      http://freedocumentaries.org/theatre.php?filmid=102&id=1243&wh=1000x720

      The film charts the development of the corporation as a legal entity from its genesis to unprecedented legal protection stemming from creative interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, that is from its origins as an institution chartered by governments to carry out specific public functions, to the rise of the vast modern institutions entitled to some of the legal rights of a "person." One central theme of the documentary is an attempt to assess the "personality" of the corporate "person" by using diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV; Robert Hare, a University of British Columbia Psychology Professor and FBI consultant, compares the modern, profit-driven corporation to that of a clinically diagnosed psychopath.
      http://www.thecorporation.com/

      " Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy " - John Pierpont Morgan

      RECOMMENDED READING : LIFE INC
      CHAPTER ONE
      ONCE REMOVED: THE CORPORATE LIFE- FORM
      http://rushkoff.com/books/life-incorporated/life-inc-chapter-one/

      EXCERPT
      The increased mechanization of labor in the United States, where freedom was supposed to rule, proved a bit more troublesome. Machines now controlled the rate at which people worked, and the assembly line further reduced the autonomy and humanity of workers by relegating them to a single, repetitive task. Early industrialists, such as Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and particularly John D. Rockefeller, were constantly on guard for labor unrest, and not averse to resorting to violence when necessary. It was a bad strategy. Union busting only provoked progressive newspapers to attack the industrialists, leading to further unrest, more violence, ugly interventions by the National Guard, and even some legislation against corporate power.

      As an alternative to overt repression, the industrialists sought to develop a cultural ethos more simpatico with corporate prosperity. In their new world picture, machines became the model for society, and people were the cogs within it—increasingly disconnected from their own sense of technical expertise or whatever unique contributions they might make to the process of production. They were replaceable. The function of the industrial corporation was to extract value from people’s work, for the economic benefit of the nation. This meant disconnecting people from the wealth they might be creating through their labors, and substituting a less costly sense of satisfaction or, at the very least, compliance.

      So leading industrialists funded public schools—at once gifts to the working class and powerful tools for growing a more docile labor force. They hired education reformers, like Stanford’s Ellwood P. Cubberley, to design a public school system based on a Prussian method that sought to produce what he called “mediocre intellects . . . and ensure docile citizens.” Cubberley modeled our public schools after “factories, in which the raw product [the children] are to be shaped and fashioned . . . according to the specifications laid down.”

      "Free enterprise, is a term that refers, in practice, to a system of public subsidy and private profit, with massive government intervention in the economy to maintain a welfare state for the rich." - Noam Chomsky

      "Politics is the showbiz of industry." - Frank Zappa

    • 2 years ago
  • VC1
    • 0
      VC1  

    • This issue has existed for hundreds of years. What I find interesting is the acceptability and even promotion of it by just the right amount of those people who feel they're in a their "comfort zone", i.e., 'I have a job, I live in the 'burbs, my kids go to a decent school and will go to college and I've planned for my retirement - so why change anything just because most other people don't have I what I have; mine might be taken away from me to help them'.

      If you add that attitude to the current national trend of the "AMERICAN IDIOT" psyche of 'MOTIVATIONAL RATIONAL' (the ability to justify a belief based on anything from being too lazy to find out the truth, to I am always right about everything just because...), there's not going to be too much change.

    • 2 years ago
  • Lurkistan
  • sergantonio
    • 0
      sergantonio  

    • As usual the overly emotional and reactionary Nature of class and race blur the simple premise of this article.
      To clear it up This article is not saying all millionaires are cheaters and liars in reality the 1% of the top economic class did not earn any of the money they use to exercise unreasonable power one everyone else 90% of the population is a lot of people.
      While I as a minority am regularly disappointed when I see lazy moochers as I walk but lugging a heavy back packs on and off the bus every day from college.
      But in pretty sure that those people do not constitute 90% of the people classified as other on the economic scale.
      I to have a millionaire family member who created his own company and he dose not quality as that top 1% in fact he is in the upper 80% at best.
      The people in this article are CEO’s the same people who used a form of complex math normally used in physics to confuse the public.
      They don’t work they just order others around and gamble with the money of uninformed unwilling investors.
      We all need to Keep our eye on the ball and remember these are very different people from just the rich.

    • 2 years ago
  • eskimoe
    • 0
      eskimoe  

    • I think a big part of it is all the folks that are making a killing in the music industry and entertainment industry. There are more ways to make money now because of the internet and so forth.

    • 2 years ago
  • CreditFigaro
  • nursediesel
  • Clayj05
  • thedirtman
    • 0
      thedirtman  
    • Clayj05:

      Working people actually do work. On the other hand, people aren't paid for labor anymore. People are paid for their investments, their image, their inheritance, their giftedness, their family name... anything but labor. That stuff about rich people working hard for their money is a crock... or maybe you're joking.

    • 2 years ago
  • Tyrone_Castanho
  • CreditFigaro
    • 0
      CreditFigaro  
    • Clayj05:

      Unskilled labor is NOT easy work. I have provided both skilled and unskilled labor, and I will tell you that the unskilled labor was the pits. I admire anyone who busts their ass working in a fast food joint, a farm or a factory somewhere, sweating it out so that you can enjoy cheap wal-mart crap and cheap accessible food wherever you go. You, on the other hand, resent them. You spit in the faces of the working poor because you think you are a better person than they are.

      The working poor and even the middle class bust their asses and get paid 1/3, 1/5, 1/10 of what they produce, after expenses, so that some morally bankrupt fuck can feed his ego in a corner office somewhere. They bust their asses because they have no choice. There are plenty of people who will do anything to put food on their table.

      I know you are an honorable man, Clay, and that you have the choice whether or not to work hard, and you choose to work hard. You are so lucky that you got to be raised oblivious to the suffering of those less fortunate.

      You have never been poor, you have never had the joy of a welfare Christmas.

      You think that you are paying for welfare checks, when the reality is that those who receive them are paying so you can be so smug.

    • 2 years ago
  • loupetho
    • 0
      loupetho  
    • Clayj05:

      Firstly they pay so little tax ... secondly, the few people that live on welfare out of choice, taking money they didn't work for, are not that dissimilar to the maga-rich who take money they don't work for - gambling on the stock market is not constructive, meaningful, creative work. It's getting paid while sitting on your ass and letting someone else do the work.

    • 2 years ago
  • craigsaid
  • kennymotown
    • 0
      kennymotown  

    • The only enemy of both the Rich and Corporations is the government. The government can change laws or bow to the corporatist that own our Representatives. We are the government, do something for your country!

    • 2 years ago
  • EmperorThan
  • Nancy_Stueben
  • carmalite
    • 0
      carmalite  

    • They have pushed their control and dominance of the government so far that it would take a Teddy Roosevelt and an unindoctrinated ignorant working class and middle class that votes against their economic interert willing to have a real fight against the oligarchy that is strangling not only America,, but those other countries who have sold out the welfare of the entire country for the parasites who don't just want to be rich but to take it all.
      Germany, Sweaden, France and other countries have not sold out the average citizen in order to let the new Feudal corporate elite have the whole pie, not just a nice share.
      It may take a grassroots rebellion. But with the fundamentalist churches being the helpers of the feudal corporatistst, the modern superstitutious peasants are being trained to believe that they deserve their poverty, and that the parasites who are oppressing them are "annointed" by God. Its almost funny because Marx was right in some respects.
      Well regulated Capitalism works, but the pigs want the whole pie not just a good share. Even after the bankers ripped everyone off, they are screaming that that regulation for the industry is bad. Lassiez-faire capitalism is as destructive as corrupt communism. Here we have developed corporate communism where they get to have it all for free and the little people pay for their excesses..

    • 2 years ago
  • kennymotown
  • craigsaid
  • Maitereya
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • PRIVATIZE THE PROFITS
      SOCIALIZE THE COST

      ...to death, the death of the middle class indeed ;)

      "How to get people to vote against their interests and to really think against their interests is very clever. It's the cleverest ruling class that I have ever come across in history. It's been 200 years at it. It's superb." - Gore Vidal

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • treewolf39
  • Ihatethemall
  • WhiteNoise
  • kennymotown
  • unimatrix0
  • evoleon
    • 0
      evoleon  
    • unimatrix0:

      Uhhh yeah it's pretty much done, they have the military, police and guns. You are against guns so they would pretty much just round you up or shoot you if you really got in their way.

    • 2 years ago
  • Ragan
  • FishaHouse777
  • Chapisbored
  • JulianCommongold
    • 0
      JulianCommongold  

    • "Have the mega-rich achieved victory in their class-war?"

      Not until they have eliminated the Middle Class.
      Because that is what is going to happen if they keep this shit up.

    • 2 years ago
  • FishaHouse777
    • 0
      FishaHouse777  
    • JulianCommongold:

      There already is no middle class in my mind, I beleive the "middle class" is now the upper poor class. There is only the rich and the poor and the two groups are becoming more easily defined every year. But that doesn't mean we can't fix this if we just force our government to act and regulate income tax and keep a watchful eye on the rich.

    • 2 years ago
  • JulianCommongold
  • dv627univ
  • kivol
  • FishaHouse777
  • asherp
  • corndog67
    • 0
      corndog67  

    • More power to them. I didn't say that the unemployment rate was due to laziness. I know there are lots of people looking for work. These "bums" as you call them, and you're right, choose to not work, and there are more than a couple of them.

      And most of those guys with the $50 mil homes, worked to get where they are. You do get there by hard work. I'm not being manipulated. And I'm not an expert, either, in anything. Sure they got some good breaks. But you don't get there by being an idiot, and It seems that you are insinuating that they are all crooks. Not by a long shot. Bill Gates a crook? Last I heard, he was about $60 Bil. Steve Jobs? These guys started in a garage. To assume they are all crooks is wrong.

      This is the United States. There is a black man in the White House (which I didn't think could possibly happen, but it did). The prospects in this country are better than anywhere else in world. Someone suggested to re-distribute the wealth. Why? Why should I work when they will just give me the money. We would become a Nation of those assholes I mentioned earlier.

      Now those billionaires (nearly) that you know, are they crooked, too? Ask them how they got where they are. They sure aren't sitting around, playing Hacky-Sack, getting stoned or drunk, and asking people for money are they?

    • 2 years ago
  • humanpasta
    • 0
      humanpasta  
    • corndog67:

      What about the bailouts? They asked for money and then gave themselves multiple millions worth of bonuses. For putting thier company in the shitter. This counts as panhandling. On a huge scale...

    • 2 years ago
  • FishaHouse777
    • 0
      FishaHouse777  
    • corndog67:

      Those people who accepted the bail-outs and asked for more are the people we should be after. Corndog is saying leave the millionaires who worked hard and are still working hard alone. They don't deserve to be bad-named, it's the greedy CEO's of banks and insurance/health companies that we should be targeting.

    • 2 years ago
  • CreditFigaro
    • 0
      CreditFigaro  
    • corndog67:

      It's unfortunate that you assume that what is meant by "redistribute wealth" is just to give money away. This just isn't the case. No one is advocating taking money from the rich people and just tossing it around.

      We are talking about a systematic extortion that exists in this country. We have a ton of talented people itching to work. Let's build some infrastructure that can take us into the next century. Clean power production, new grid, electric car system, wi-fi everywhere, train more police men, build more schools, conduct a ton of research, etc. etc. etc.

      These are all things that would boost the productivity and efficiency of our country which we could do by paying the unemployed, in a matter of

    • 2 years ago
  • kennymotown
    • 0
      kennymotown  

    • From the horses mouth Warren Buffet it is class warfare and my side is winning, enough said to the victor goes the spoils, to the losers eat cake and shut up! How long before we storm the gated communities?

    • 2 years ago
  • mik661
    • 0
      mik661  

    • @ corndog. so you know a couple millionaires now you are an expert. I know a couple of people who are close to billionaires on a business level so i must be a freaking economic genius. You are making the mistake that when you hear people talking about the "rich" you think its people who have a million dollar house or a couple mil total worth. That is not the case. The people being discussed here are the ones that live in 50 million dollar estates whose wealth is measured in the hundreds of millions. they didn't get that money just by going to school and working hard. They got it by manipulating politics and the opinion of people such as your self to give themselves a license to steal. plus it takes real talent to equate a couple bums in your home town into the claim that 10.2 (or adjusted 17% plus) unemployment is due to laziness.

    • 2 years ago
  • FishaHouse777
    • 0
      FishaHouse777  

    • Regulation and income-tax adjustation would solve all of this in a years time. Question is will the people actually demand for regulation and adjustation or will they stay quiet and wait for the rich to get richer while we get poorer.

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • Image

    • "Politics is the showbiz of industry." - Frank Zappa

      Some years from now, in an economic refugee relocation "Enterprise Zone," your kids will ask you, "What did you do in the Class War, Daddy?"

      The richest fifth of America owns 83% of all shares in the stock market. But that's a bit misleading because most of that, 53% of all the stock, is owned by just one percent of American households.

      While 15.9% of us don't have health insurance (a record, Mr. President!), even those of us who have it, don't have it: we're spending 36% more per family out of pocket on medical costs since the new regime took power in Washington. If you've actually tried to collect from your insurance company, you know what I mean.

      And what does the Wealthy One Percent want? Answer: more wealth. Where will they get it? As with a tube of toothpaste, they're squeezing it from the bottom. Median paychecks have gone down by 5.9% during the current regime, but Americans in the bottom fifth have seen their incomes sliced by 20%.

      So who's winning? It's a crude indicator, but let's take a peek at the Class War body count.

      When Reagan took power in 1980, the One Percent possessed 33% of America's wealth as measured by capital income. By 2006, the One Percent has swallowed over half of all America's assets, from sea to shining sea. One hundred fifty million Americans altogether own less than 3% of all private assets.

      Today's Pig is Tomorrow's Bacon
      http://www.gregpalast.com/todays-pig-is-tomorrows-bacon-a-labor-day-recipe/

      THIRD WORLD AMERICA !
      http://current.com/items/89833556_third-world-america.htm

      "It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people" - Gore Vidal

    • 2 years ago
  • CreditFigaro
  • corndog67
    • 0
      corndog67  

    • Let me ask you something. Do you sit around various restraunts, just outside the door, and panhandle for money? I realize the jobless situation is getting pretty serious, but from your reply, you are looking for a job. These are the same people that I've seen for 3 or 4 years, we have a pretty temperate climate in San Luis Obispo, like I said before, apparently able bodied young people, that think that panhandling is an optional lifestyle. If you can afford a dog (a lot of them have dogs), if you can afford cigarettes, you don't need to ask me for money.

      Good luck on the job search.

    • 2 years ago
  • ianakaeeen
    • 0
      ianakaeeen  
    • corndog67:

      No, I'm not panhandling. I'm looking for jobs and have resorted to filling out applications for places I'm CLEARLY under-qualified for. I've considered "busking" which is sitting out in public, playing music for money, which I would argue is more honorable than just begging. I would be providing entertainment in return after all. I don't really think I have much of a singing voice so I have not really been inspired to do so.

      And thank you.

    • 2 years ago
  • corndog67
    • 0
      corndog67  

    • That's funny. I know a couple of millionaires, I'm not one of them, and they made the money the old fashioned way, they worked for it. I'm not going to bash them for finishing school and working hard.

      On the other hand, judging by the number of people I see, apparently able bodied young people, in this area, that aren't willing to work, that sit around smoking cigarettes, mooching money for passers by, and generally not doing shit. A very large number of them.

      Kill the top 400.
      Why not kill the homeless instead?

    • 2 years ago
  • ianakaeeen
  • FishaHouse777
    • 0
      FishaHouse777  
    • corndog67:

      ianakaeeen what state do you live in? because i'm pretty sure with management experience you could easily find a job if you got off the internet and left your house to actually look for one.

    • 2 years ago
  • ahappymintleaf
  • ii386
    • 0
      ii386  
    • corndog67:

      Fishahouse- thats assuming there are jobs to get in his area and that there are not other people with that same or more experience already applying for them and it also depends on your definition of what easy is...considering you already knew that what you said is problematic and is especially variable by location, you could just downplay the whole recession thing and chalk it up to him being on the internet and not really putting the effort in! ohh man brilliant! yeahh.

    • 2 years ago
  • flyingkick
  • PatrioticAstronaut
    • 0
      PatrioticAstronaut  
    • corndog67:

      Ianakaeeen, at least you have experience. Do you know how hard it is to find work in today's economy as a no experience teenager? Well, its hard as hell. Epecially with as many unemployed college graduates looking for temporary work. I hate you guys; you guys fucked my generation so bad. You took the system for granted, and now my generation has to pay the consequences. so, now even if I work hard, and get into college; there is a strong chance that I wont be able to find a decent job. You guys not only managed to fuck up Americas economic equliibrieum, but also you've fucked up America's educational tradition of employment, and post college job phasing. I hate anyone born before 1984.

    • 2 years ago
  • PatrioticAstronaut
    • 0
      PatrioticAstronaut  
    • corndog67:

      Ianakaeeen, at least you have experience. Do you know how hard it is to find work in today's economy as a no experience teenager? Well, its hard as hell. Epecially with as many unemployed college graduates looking for temporary work. I hate you guys; you guys fucked my generation so bad. You took the system for granted, and now my generation has to pay the consequences. so, now even if I work hard, and get into college; there is a strong chance that I wont be able to find a decent job. You guys not only managed to fuck up Americas economic equliibrieum, but also you've fucked up America's educational tradition of employment, and post college job phasing. I hate anyone born before 1984

    • 2 years ago
  • corndog67
  • blaino
    • 0
      blaino  
    • corndog67:

      Well when you start meeting people who have never worked a day in their life, their fortune has been passed down through the family, they have more money than anyone could ever spend in a series of lifetimes, then and only then will you have room to speak on the matter of "hard work".

      No normal person could work and make the kind of money that the top 1% have, no matter how hard they work, no matter how early in life the start, there is no way.

    • 2 years ago
  • CreditFigaro
    • 0
      CreditFigaro  
    • corndog67:

      Now, now. Some billionaires are self made, they weren't born into money.

      On the other hand, it is absolutely impossible to earn more than 20 times the average income without the exploitation of someone else.

      No one here is complaining about millionaires. We all want more millionaires. The question is, do we want more billionaires? I would say not.

      You can earn 500K a year and be in the top 0.1%

      Then these top 400 are "earning" $263 MILLION a YEAR?

      Unacceptable. Tax the shit out of them, what else are they doing with it?

    • 2 years ago
  • ianakaeeen
    • 0
      ianakaeeen  
    • corndog67:

      From the looks of your little current.com profile Fisha, you spend more time on the internet than me. Like I said, I can't find employment for things I'm over-qualified for. I'm talking about shitwork like being a retail drone. When I was working in management, we had STACKS of applications sitting on our desks and when the rarity came along that we NEEDED a new employee, they'd take the top application from the "approved" stack to hire (out of hundreds, mind you). The unemployment rate went from like 4% to 6.6% sometime in 2008 (VA)- and a lot of my friends (early 20's) can't find jobs anywhere either, even though my state's percentage isn't THAT bad compared to others with major metropolitan cities. It seems in my state, people in my age group aren't getting hired so well. So apparently, management experience isn't worth shit.

      And as for you, PatrioticAstronaut; don't blame us for your teenage angst. It's corruption in the government and Wall Street foul play that caused this problem of economy. I didn't come up with derivatives or completely deregulate capitalism. We didn't "fuck up" anything. How about you get good grades in school so you can get a scholarship instead of the route I chose, which entailed me getting average to above average grades and then waste money in community college until you couldn't afford it anymore because of a crumbling economy and unemployment.

      I really don't know, I've lost faith in capitalism an economic doctrine, but that really isn't saying much. I've lost faith in democracy as a governing philosophy and that's really saying a lot. This power struggle between people and government, poor and rich, upper-class and lower-class; it needs to stop. We have the money, the means, the medical knowledge, and the intelligence to build a little human paradise, but the rich won't let that happen and poor don't believe it's possible. Something's got to happen. Human nature is malleable to the choice between fear and love. We need to change. Obama had it wrong, it's not "change we need," but "we who need to change." Internally, we need to evolve our mindset from this secular materialist and fundamentalist religious paradigm to something more humanist, post-modern. Instead of world government, we need world consciousness. We, as a species, need to grow up.

    • 2 years ago
  • molesteban
  • FishaHouse777
  • JulianCommongold
  • Maitereya
  • JulianCommongold
  • neonbunny
  • asherp
    • 0
      asherp  
    • molesteban:

      we all create jobs, not the top 400.

      What do they do? The speculate on fictional resources, and create financial bubbles on wall street, while we work our asses off making society function.

      They don't create jobs, we do.

    • 2 years ago
  • ianakaeeen
    • 0
      ianakaeeen  

    • "How could America’s super rich have so little, relatively speaking, back in 1955 and so much today?"

      Derivatives, Wall Street douchebagery, Federal Reserve, corruption in the government, etc.

      NWO anyone?

    • 2 years ago
  • ianakaeeen
  • cerci_girl
  • carmalite
    • 0
      carmalite  
    • ianakaeeen:

      And Reagan's breaking of the unions insured that the parasitic rich could have cheap labor. But NAFTA insured that they could even have slave labor and destroy the middle class. The parasites know that without a middle class, there can not be a Democra

    • 2 years ago
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