US: The Rich Get Richer & the next Gilded Age is here

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deleted15807

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Breathtaking actually:

The top 10 percent of earners took more than half of all income. That is the highest recorded level ever.

The figures underscore that even after the recession the country remains in a kind of new Gilded Age, with income as concentrated as it was in the years that preceded the Great Depression, if not more so.

The Rich Get Richer Through the Recovery

My feeling is it's going to take another revolution. The bottom seems to think if they adopt the values of the top they'll be rich too. The 'liberal class' is essentially dead.
 
D

deleted15807

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But if the bottom are so identified with their overlords, where will we find the rebels?

Conan that is the BIG question. Charles Blow in the NYTimes wrote:

There is a vacuum in the American body politic waiting to be filled by a young person of vision and courage, one not suckled to sleep by reality television and social media monotony.

The only question is who will that person be. Who will be this generation’s “most dangerous” American? The country is waiting.

The last Gilded Age ended due to the Great Depression. Income disparity wasn't undone by a person or a movement. I don't know what the catalyst will be the next time however you can only suppress for so long. Eventually the economy will not grow because without the middle class having decent wages to spend it can't grow. The rich will continue to try and get richer by throwing vast amounts of money in speculative bubbles then pull out as being done in emerging economies now.
 

Klingsor

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Calboner

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The trouble is, many people can look at the video and still say, "What's the problem? It's theirs, they earned it."

It doesn't matter how rigged the game is, so long as you can claim to be following the rules.
The concentration of wealth in a small part of the population is to the detriment of everyone--even those at the top. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have established in metric after metric that social ills are correlated not with average income or wealth in countries but with their degree of inequality.

The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger: Kate Pickett, Richard Wilkinson: 9781608193417: Amazon.com: Books

One of the authors gives a brief summary of their findings in this TED lecture:

Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies | Video on TED.com
 

bigmatt1983

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The trouble is, many people can look at the video and still say, "What's the problem? It's theirs, they earned it."

It doesn't matter how rigged the game is, so long as you can claim to be following the rules.

well thats because we were raised on stories of the CEOs that built companies from the ground up and actually earned it and that we should revere those people for living the American dream. but now its mostly people that inherited those companies that are now just ringing every dollar that they can out of it with out doing any of the work them selves
 

Drifterwood

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Should this be surprising in a capitalist establishment? I don't think so. If you don't have any disposable income, as it appears that 80% and more do not, how can you accumulate wealth? The next Middle Class level spend their money on housing and education and health, leaving only the really wealthy to break free of such commitments.

The wealthy are also aided in the US by a very "flexible" taxation system that actually takes more from earned income than investment income.

If you reward the already rich people they will get even richer. D'uh.....:wink:
 
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Calboner

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Alex Henderson in Alternet, September 5, 2013: "10 Ways America Has Come to Resemble a Banana Republic." Here are the points of comparison:
1. Rising Income Inequality and Shrinking Middle Class

2. Unchecked Police Corruption and an Ever-Expanding Police State

3. Torture

4. Highest Incarceration Rate in the World

5. Corrupt Alliance of Big Business and Big Government

6. High Unemployment

7. Inadequate Access to Healthcare

8. Dramatic Gaps in Life Expectancy

9. Hunger and Malnutrition

10. High Infant Mortality
Nos. 1 and 4–7 seem to me more fundamental than the others: causes rather than just symptoms.
 

bar4doug

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Interesting, but misleading. Wealth = Assets - Liabilities

While it explains where the wealth is, it doesn't explain how people got pigeon holed into their place on the line of 100, which was simplified from the 311 million Americans.

I pop of my mothers vagina. 1 day old. I have no wealth. I am not on the scale.

Between then and the time I graduate high school, I don't have a job. Hopefully mom and dad can take care of me. Buy me clothes; put food in my mouth. I still have no wealth. Maybe I can sell my clothes for nickels on the dollar. Maybe my uncle gives me a savings bond. Maybe the tooth fairy leave me a fin under the pillow. Maybe I get a paper route, or work in fast food. But I am a teenager... I don't save much. I spend what I make. I still have no wealth.

College. Now the fun starts. Need to pay tuition, room, board, books, food, iPhone, beer, more beer, condoms, clothes, gas, jack-ass Spring Break trips. Five or six years later, I am on the hook for at least $150,000. I have no wealth, since I owe on the loans I took out to live through college and pay for it.

The roaring 20's... Get a job, if I am lucky. Need to pay rent. Need to buy a car. Need to pay off those student loans. I am, at the start of my working career, say $175,000 in the hole. I still can't get into the black. The rent is too damn high. Car needs new tires. Phone dropped in the toilet. Gas costs $100 / week. Went out drinking and dropped $100. Shit. Life is tough.

Looks like I will never have wealth until I make enough, after all living expenses have been paid, to pay off the debt I started this game with. That will take 15-20 years. What am I now? 40? Shit. Got married. Gotta pay for that wedding. KIDS! Wahoo!!! Wait a minute? What my parents were able to do for me I need to do for my kids? Damn. Still can't save enough to have positive wealth.

Great!!! Kids have graduated high school. They are on their own now. Maybe my mortgage payments are finally at an end. Now I can start accumulating wealth!! Oh, let me take some vacations. I deserve it. I've had a hard life.

Crap. I am 62. Ready for retirement. Where did all the time go. WHERE DID ALL THE MONEY GO? Shit. I need to hope Social Security stays solvent, or I am out on the street.

Why couldn't I save?

So, I would ask, of the 311 million people in that chart, how many have no wealth simply because they are:
1. Under 18.
2. In college.
3. Saddled with student loan debt.
4. Saddled with mortgage debt.
5. Have a family to provide for.

It's the cost of living that keeps people down, not the fact that rich people are getting richer... They simply have enough money to pay the cost of living, and until you spend less than you make, wealth will never be accumulated.

So how many people get a free ride through college?
So how many people get a good paying job right out of college?
So how many people get a good deal on housing in a location where a good job exists?
So how many people inherit there wealth?

And then ask, how many people never get out of debt?

And I think that explains the curve / skew.
 

B_underguy1

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Interesting, but misleading. Wealth = Assets - Liabilities

While it explains where the wealth is, it doesn't explain how people got pigeon holed into their place on the line of 100, which was simplified from the 311 million Americans.

I pop of my mothers vagina. 1 day old. I have no wealth. I am not on the scale.

Between then and the time I graduate high school, I don't have a job. Hopefully mom and dad can take care of me. Buy me clothes; put food in my mouth. I still have no wealth. Maybe I can sell my clothes for nickels on the dollar. Maybe my uncle gives me a savings bond. Maybe the tooth fairy leave me a fin under the pillow. Maybe I get a paper route, or work in fast food. But I am a teenager... I don't save much. I spend what I make. I still have no wealth.

College. Now the fun starts. Need to pay tuition, room, board, books, food, iPhone, beer, more beer, condoms, clothes, gas, jack-ass Spring Break trips. Five or six years later, I am on the hook for at least $150,000. I have no wealth, since I owe on the loans I took out to live through college and pay for it.

The roaring 20's... Get a job, if I am lucky. Need to pay rent. Need to buy a car. Need to pay off those student loans. I am, at the start of my working career, say $175,000 in the hole. I still can't get into the black. The rent is too damn high. Car needs new tires. Phone dropped in the toilet. Gas costs $100 / week. Went out drinking and dropped $100. Shit. Life is tough.

Looks like I will never have wealth until I make enough, after all living expenses have been paid, to pay off the debt I started this game with. That will take 15-20 years. What am I now? 40? Shit. Got married. Gotta pay for that wedding. KIDS! Wahoo!!! Wait a minute? What my parents were able to do for me I need to do for my kids? Damn. Still can't save enough to have positive wealth.

Great!!! Kids have graduated high school. They are on their own now. Maybe my mortgage payments are finally at an end. Now I can start accumulating wealth!! Oh, let me take some vacations. I deserve it. I've had a hard life.

Crap. I am 62. Ready for retirement. Where did all the time go. WHERE DID ALL THE MONEY GO? Shit. I need to hope Social Security stays solvent, or I am out on the street.

Why couldn't I save?

So, I would ask, of the 311 million people in that chart, how many have no wealth simply because they are:
1. Under 18.
2. In college.
3. Saddled with student loan debt.
4. Saddled with mortgage debt.
5. Have a family to provide for.

It's the cost of living that keeps people down, not the fact that rich people are getting richer... They simply have enough money to pay the cost of living, and until you spend less than you make, wealth will never be accumulated.

So how many people get a free ride through college?
So how many people get a good paying job right out of college?
So how many people get a good deal on housing in a location where a good job exists?
So how many people inherit there wealth?

And then ask, how many people never get out of debt?

And I think that explains the curve / skew.

It means the rich have designed the system to suit their own class. That includes having a debt money system combined with too low government social spending, a constant attack on unions, wages and conditions enabled by having a pool of unemployed labour and the ability to use wage arbitrage with the dismantling of tariffs and import barriers.

The rich have achieved social and political power far beyond what most people imagine is the case.

They are the real government. The politicians are just there to give you the illusion of choice and political power.

It's an inevitable stage of laissez faire capitalism. This time it's global.
 
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Klingsor

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Interesting, but misleading. Wealth = Assets - Liabilities

While it explains where the wealth is, it doesn't explain how people got pigeon holed into their place on the line of 100, which was simplified from the 311 million Americans . . .

You enumerate some of the "cost of living" reasons more people don't become wealthy. But the challenges you mention were faced by earlier generations as well.

After World War II, the U.S. had thirty years or so of a steadily rising middle class. But then, with the ascendancy of the conservative movement, the last thirty years has seen a marked erosion of the middle class, along with a sharp increase in income and wealth disparity.

The points you raise don't address this alarming historical trend.
 

Drifterwood

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What are the relative costs to the Middle Class of today compared to thirty years ago of Health Care, Property, Pension Provision and College?

I think it is a lot more expensive to be Middle Class today.
 

Klingsor

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What are the relative costs to the Middle Class of today compared to thirty years ago of Health Care, Property, Pension Provision and College?

I think it is a lot more expensive to be Middle Class today.

It's more expensive to be anyone today. But there's also more money to pay for it all. The problem is, that money is concentrated, more lopsidedly than ever before, in the hands of the top 1%.

You can attribute this imbalance to whatever you like, but it's making the U.S. more and more like a top-heavy third world economy.
 

B_underguy1

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It's more expensive to be anyone today. But there's also more money to pay for it all. The problem is, that money is concentrated, more lopsidedly than ever before, in the hands of the top 1%.

You can attribute this imbalance to whatever you like, but it's making the U.S. more and more like a top-heavy third world economy.

You have an oligarchy and/or kleptocracy.
 

vince

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Wealth inequality is a worldwide problem. The US is near the top of the list among OECD nations, but many of us in other countries are experiencing similiar levels of disparate incomes. South America nations in particular have huge gaps between the top 10% and everyone else.

Deutsche Bundesbank - Press releases -
The richest 10% of households (based on the respective definition) account for 55.7% of the total gross wealth and 59.2% of the total net wealth of all households. The highlighted inequality of wealth broadly corresponds to the outcome of other comparable surveys for Germany.

Russians are getting wealthier but inequality grows ? RT Business
High inequality remains one of the key social issues. While billionaires worldwide normally own 2% of total household wealth, in Russia around 100 billionaires have 30% of all personal assets.

“Excluding small Caribbean nations with resident billionaires, wealth inequality in Russia is the highest in the world. Worldwide there is one billionaire for every $194bln in household wealth; Russia has one billionaire for every $15bln,” Credit Suisse added.