Top 1 Percent Control 42 Percent of Financial Wealth in the U.S.

Dec 2009
128
0
Vancouver
Many Americans are not buying the recent stock market rally. This is being reflected in multiple polls showing negative attitudes towards the economy and Wall Street. Wall Street is so disconnected from the average American that they fail to see the 27 million unemployed and underemployed Americans that now have a harder time believing the gospel of financial engineering prosperity. Americans have a reason to be dubious regarding the recovery because jobs are the main push for most Americans. A recent study shows that over 70 percent of Americans derive their monthly income from an actual W-2 job. In other words, working is the prime mover and source of their income. Yet the financial elite have very little understanding of this concept. Why? 42 percent of financial wealth is controlled by the top 1 percent. We would need to go back to the Great Depression to see such lopsided data.

Many Americans are still struggling at the depths of this recession. We have 37 million Americans on food stamps and many wait until midnight of the last day of the month so checks can clear to buy food at Wal-Mart. Do you think these people are starring at the stock market? The overall data is much worse:
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Welcome to the 2010 serfdom. Time to wake up and restructure the system. Many people are starting to wake up to this massive scam.

Lots more knowledge to be had at the link below!

http://www.mybudget360.com/top-1-pe...to-debt-servitude-by-promises-of-mega-wealth/
 

myp

Jan 2009
5,841
50
No full quotations- you've done it ArghMonkey :p (thanks for remembering)

As for the topic at hand, as J.S. Mill wrote- libertarianism may lead to drastic differences in wealth, the less wealthy will still be better off than in an egalitarian society (not an exact quotation, but he essentially said this.)

Unfortunately, this country is too entangled in corporate interests and hence we don't have that libertarian society which Mill would have wanted. I think the point here though is that instead of focusing on how rich the top are, we should be focusing on helping the poor and that would in my opinion be done by cutting taxes (I am for abolishing the income tax all together) as well as the welfare state (including the corporate welfare state.)
 
Mar 2009
2,188
2
AWESOME Quote! Exactly what has been going through my mind as well. I am almost convinced that ALL of the bail-out money that got bulldozed through in January went straight to the stock exchange - i.e. Wall Street, and you are so right, the BIG Banks, who got to be singled out for bail-outs are completely divorced from normal working people, and are completely invisible and unapproachable. For example, do any of us have an idea of how the bail out money was spent, and/or repaid? How transparent has that been? I am convinced if that bail out money had been used to set up building societies in local communities, that that would have been the kind of help that the economy desperately needed. The BIG Banks' time was up, and they should have been allowed to fold. Instead greed has been tanked up in January and they are on the roll again!
 
Apr 2009
1,943
5
Disunited Queendom
42%... I'm not really surprised.

myp, might i recommend The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett?

It's really interesting.

I know, this should be in the books recommendation thread but it's relevant to this as well.
 
Nov 2020
1,571
2
New Amsterdam
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result of the labours unfinished of Testew and Cunard it is established as hereinafter but not so fast for reasons unknown that as a result of the public works of Puncher and Wattmann it is established beyond all doubt that in view of the labours of Fartov and Belcher left unfinished for reasons unknown of Testew and Cunard left unfinished it is established what many deny that man in Possy of Testew and Cunard that man in Essy that man in short that man in brief in spite of the strides of alimentation and defecation is seen to waste and pine waste and pine and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the strides of physical culture the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts penicilline and succedanea in a word I resume and concurrently simultaneously for reasons unknown to shrink and dwindle in spite of the tennis I resume flying gliding golf over nine and eighteen holes tennis of all sorts in a word for reasons unknown in Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham namely concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown but time will tell to shrink and dwindle I resume Fulham Clapham in a word the dead loss per head since the death of Bishop Berkeley being to the tune of one inch four ounce per head approximately by and large more or less to the nearest decimal good measure round figures stark naked in the stockinged feet in Connemara in a word for reasons unknown no matter what matter the facts are there and considering what is more much more grave that in the light of the labours lost of Steinweg and Peterman it appears what is more much more grave that in the light the light the light of the labours lost of Steinweg and Peterman that in the plains in the mountains by the seas by the rivers running water running fire the air is the same and than the earth namely the air and then the earth in the great cold the great dark the air and the earth abode of stones in the great cold alas alas in the year of their Lord six hundred and something the air the earth the sea the earth abode of stones in the great deeps the great cold on sea on land and in the air I resume for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis the facts are there but time will tell I resume alas alas on on in short in fine on on abode of stones who can doubt it I resume but not so fast I resume the skull to shrink and waste and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis on on the beard the flames the tears the stones so blue so calm alas alas on on the skull the skull the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the labours abandoned left unfinished graver still abode of stones in a word I resume alas alas abandoned unfinished the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the skull alas the stones Cunard (mêlée, final vociferations) tennis… the stones… so calm… Cunard… unfinished…”
 
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